


sleight of hand

by illinoise



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, Modern AU, NEWSBIANS!!!, PUNK CRUTCHIE SORTA, jack and davey are the background tattoo parlor/flowershop au no one asked for, jack n kath are bffs, kath is sad but immensely gay, sarah’s a magician, there is a dismal lack of lesbian fanfic for newsies so here i stand, they live in san diego bc why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinoise/pseuds/illinoise
Summary: For Katherine, fathers and writing and the future are hard—a cute magician on the streets of San Diego, though, is easy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! you know what this fandom is lacking? lesbians. so here i stand, bringing you a full chaptered fic about lesbians.  
> let’s get into it!!!!!

Normally, Katherine walks right by street magicians.

They’re everywhere in her odds-and-ends San Diego coastal town, especially the touristy areas--bays and docks and corners by amusement parks. They do some tricks for sunburned foreigners, collect the money in a hat, and take off. She hasn’t ever cared for them. 

All it takes to change that is a pretty girl juggling red ping-pong balls outside of a gift shop. 

Katherine passes by her on the way home from therapy. She hears her voice first, or rather her laughter, carried over the air like wind chimes, and her head snaps up. And God, does she swoon. This street magician’s got clumsy hands and her flyaway curls are glinting in the sun and she laughs her way through her own jokes.

Katherine is smitten. And also any other synonym for completely in love.

So much that she stops to watch a magic show for the first time in her life.

When Katherine joins the crowd, her tiny lesbian heart melting, the magician’s holding up a red ping-pong ball. 

“I’ve got a bigger audience than usual,” she says, producing two more ping-pong balls out of nowhere and beginning to juggle. “I’m a nervous juggler. Large crowds cause me stress.” She laughs, pulling another and another until she’s somehow juggling five in a circle. 

Just like that, the balls disappear. Mostly to amuse a little girl in the front, the magician feigns confusion, then pretends to start gagging and appears to spit one of the ping-pong balls out of her mouth.

She crosses her arms at the lack of a response. “You aren’t gonna clap for that? Come on, that was good, right?” 

Obediently everyone applauds, Katherine included with a smile on her face. 

“Well, actually, this is nothing,” she says after she’s pretended to spit up two more. “I was doing one of my shows once and this guy decided to show me up. He came up to me and his arm was into his mouth up to the elbow. I said, 'Sir, that is impossible, take it out right now.’ The man showed me his arm; he was an amputee, only had half of it. Some people have different senses of humor than others,” she says, giggling along with the crowd around her.

I want to marry you in every single way I can, Katherine is thinking. The sun is hot on her back and she doesn’t even care.

“Now, this next trick--oh, you’ll wanna stay for this one.” She pulls a long rainbow handkerchief out of her sleeve, grinning at the applause it earns. “That’s not the special trick. Thank you, though! Hmm… alright, for the real deal, I’ll need a couple volunteers.”

Katherine’s torn between mortal terror of audience participation and an adorable girl holding a rainbow scarf. ‘Twas always thus. She pays for her hesitation--two guys are selected before she can even volunteer.

The magician picks up a metal ring contraption, with two pairs of dangling chain-links on it, and padlocks. “Now, I’ve never done this before. It’s like an experiment.” She hands each of the guys one padlock and adds, “It’s funny, that’s exactly what my last girlfriend said.”

High grade gay alert mode. Girlfriend. _Girlfriend._ Rainbow scarf. Marriage. Katherine wants to start squealing.

“Okay!” she declares loudly through the laughter. “Nathan, was it? Get these chains around my wrist. Not that tight! Wow. This is a thing for you, huh? There we go. Now lock it.” He clicks the padlock shut, and she has her other volunteer do the other.

She holds up her now-bound wrists, then raises her eyebrows. “I don’t enjoy this, by the way. For anyone wondering. Nathan, be a dear and fetch the red cloth sticking out of my bag?”

While he does, she giggles, “I’m friends with a sword-swallower, actually, and I asked him once if he enjoys what he does. He looked at me and went 'I'm straight, if that's what you mean.’”

The volunteer returns, cloth in hand. “Alright, now hold up this cloth in front of me. Just like that! Pull on my chains again. Are the locks fake? Are the chains fake? Nope! Genuine chains.” She rattles them.

Then she lowers her voice to an excited whisper, hands concealed. “Alright, this is my first time doing this. Are you ready to be mindblown? Let’s do it.”

She counts down from three and then lifts her hands into view, free from the chains. 

Katherine leans forward, an eternal skeptic, but the locks haven’t been undone, and the chains are still intact on their large metal ring. 

This time, everyone claps and cheers loudly. The magician takes a few bows. “No one pays me to be here so I would appreciate it! Twenty dollar bills are good. If you don't have twenty dollar bills, I can take two tens. You can also use fives, but I won't go into that.”

She holds out her black hat, curtsying to and thanking everybody who tips her. “Come on, guys,” she calls. “Saves me from having to rob you in the parking lot later!”

The crowd disperses. All but Kath, who stands and hesitates.

If she walks away from this, she might regret not talking to the cute gay magician for eternity. If this goes wrong, the worst that can happen is an awkward encounter with someone she’ll never have to see again.

Fuck it.

“How did you do that?”

The magician looks up from counting her money, startled. 

“The chains,” Kath clarifies, feeling herself blushing. Of course she knows magic isn’t real, that it’s all hidden movements done faster than the eye can see, but she wants to know the answer. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but…”

She studies Katherine for a moment. Then, she smiles slowly. “A good magician never reveals her tricks, you know.”

Katherine’s heart pounds. She tries for a smile, hoping it doesn’t look like a wince. “I can keep a secret.”

Another moment of thoughtful silence, still with the smile, and then the street magician drops down onto the pavement. “Here, sit,” she encourages, patting the spot beside her. Katherine does, a little faster than she cares to admit.

The magician takes out her ring again. She reaches for Katherine’s wrist, then pauses. “You trust me to lock you in?” she asks. “Stranger danger.”

 _I literally trust you with my life._ “Do it.”

She does, linking each of the chains around Katherine’s wrists and clicking the padlocks shut. Katherine pulls, expecting them to be not fully-locked or something, and blinks with surprise when there’s no give. The magician laughs. She really does have a remarkable laugh. “Nope, they are real. Now,” she says, “bring them up to the sides of the ring.”

Katherine does, pulling them up parallel to each other. “Bring your hands in, through the ring.”

She gives her a funny look but does it, and is stunned when the shackles essentially just slip off. The ring clatters to the ground, her hands freed. “How--”

The magician’s eyes glow. “Bringing them in increases the space in between. It’s so simple, but it’s like you’d never think of it. Hiding in plain sight.”

“Not very magical.”

Another giggle. “Well, it clearly stumped you.” When Katherine dips her head to hide red cheeks, she adds, “What’s your name?”

“Katherine.”

“I like that. It goes with your face.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Sarah.”

“I like… your face. I mean--fuck,” Katherine says, and Sarah laughs.

“Yours isn’t bad either.” Sarah hesitates, looking at the hand she’s had extended for about five minutes now.

“Oh. Oh, right.” Katherine shakes it. Sarah’s hand is cold, and her nails are painted with chipped red polish. Suddenly red is Katherine’s favorite color.

“You seem to be holding back,” Sarah says.

“You’re a magician. Aren’t you the ones who have the buzzers on your hands?”

Sarah giggles. “That’s clowns. Don’t insult me.”

 _Holy fuck she is so pretty._ “Right. My bad. Hey--” Katherine digs into her backpack for some money stashed away. She was going to use it for vending machine snacks, but this seems more important. 

“I would give you every single cent I own and more,” is what Katherine wants to say, but instead she hands over her rumpled five dollars and says bashfully, “I don’t have much on me.”

“I get it. Thanks, really.” Sarah stands, then extends a hand to Katherine.

Katherine blinks at her cluelessly before reaching up from the ground and slowly shaking her hand again.

Sarah throws her head back and laughs. “No, I’m helping you up.”

“Oh!” Katherine turns red, burying her face in her hand and letting Sarah pull her to her feet with the other. “I am such an embarrassing person.”

“Aww, no, you’re cute.” Sarah scoops up her hat, and her phone rings. Her eyes go wide. “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, I gotta run.”

“Oh—okay,” Kath answers. “Uh, it was… nice meeting you.”

Sarah smiles at her. “You too. I…” her phone buzzes again. “Oh, God, I really have to go. Hey, come around here again sometime this week, same time? I just might be here.”

“Of course,” Katherine says, dizzy at all that she’s implying and watching as the cute magician takes off running down the street.

-

“Honey, I’m home,” Katherine calls as she steps into her tiny shared condo. “I met my future wife today.”

“Honey is home!” Jack is laying on the couch cradling a box of cereal, clearly being extremely productive. “Who’s your future wife?”

“A street magician.” Katherine clutches her heart. “You should have seen her.”

“Did you get her number? Are you tryna smash?”

“No,” Katherine admits. “Something came up before we could. But she told me to come back.”

Jack grins. “I’ll be the flowergirl.”

Katherine squints at the television as a suspiciously familiar figure darts across. Her jaw drops. “Is that—“

“No,” he says quickly, shutting it off.

“You’re watching without me?”

“Let me tell you why this is funny.”

She looks at him with murder on her face. He breaks his attempt at suaveness.

“They left it on a cliffhanger!” he whines. “And I got home early, and I couldn’t wait. I made you pasta, though. It’s in the fridge.”

Katherine is torn between the anger of missing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the joy of receiving pasta. “Let me go change and sort through my conflicting emotions,” she says, tossing one of the throw pillows at his face as she walks past.

(Jack thinks the pillows on the couch are completely stupid in a house that’s probably like 300 square feet; Katherine thinks they make it look more homely.)

“Love you,” Jack calls from behind it.

“All men do is lie!”

When she’s changed into sweatpants and had a moment to gather herself, she emerges. 

“Death penalty?” Jack asks.

“No. I’ll just make you rewatch it all with me.”

Jack groans. “I’m asking for death. Our rent is due Friday.” He watches her make her way into the kitchen area, take out the bowl of spaghetti, and immediately start eating. “Are you not gonna warm it up?”

“I’m dead inside,” she says, taking another bite.

He puts his hands up. 

Katherine pretty much wound up living with Jack out of desperation on both sides of the equation. Neither of them want to live alone and it’s easier to get by with combined money (even if neither of them make much of it at all). Everybody thinks they’re married or dating or secretly pining, when the truth is that she’s completely lesbian and he, while a raging bisexual, probably only knows what love is in relation to eating peanut butter. 

(Out of the jar. With a spoon.)

(It’s disgusting.)

“Move your feet,” she says, sitting on the opposite end of the couch with her cold spaghetti.

“How was therapy today?” Jack asks, rewinding the episode but not playing it yet.

She sighs, cupping her face in one hand and closing her eyes. “Exhausting. I want to suppress everything instead of bringing it all out into the open and letting it hurt.”

“Bringing it out is the only way for it to go away,” Jack responds, the same mantra he took up when he and Crutchie first forced her to start going.

“I know,” she says, muffled into her palm, and then into the air. “I know. That doesn’t make it easier.”

“I know you’re havin’ a time of it,” Jack says. He has these moments of sincerity, just as jarring as they are touching. “I don’t know much about what you’re dealing with, since I lost both of my parents when I was tiny. But I do know something about the empty space they leave in you when they’re gone.”

Katherine shakes her head, combing out a red curl with her fingertips. “What I’m learning is that I won’t ever be totally over it.”

“That’s normal.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. “I’ve done enough talking today. Let’s watch Buffy and kill our brains.”

“Sounds excellent,” says Jack, and he presses play.

-

When she wakes up the next morning and wanders into the front of the house, she’s surprised to see Jack. He’s cleaning the counter while a Johnny Cash live performance plays on television, belting out the notes and doing an interpretive dance.

“Do you not have work today?” Katherine asks, rubbing her eyes.

He grins. He’s always been a morning person. “Yeah, but they don’t need me at the parlor till later.”

Oh, yes. Jack and his tattoo parlor. He and Crutchie both work there, and Jack’s got plenty of his own. Katherine has always faintly wanted to get a tattoo, especially since she has so many friends so close by who could do it for her. But she can’t decide what pair of socks to wear in the morning, let alone what to put on her body forever. 

Jack goes back to wiping down the counter with far more vigor than necessary. “She was a Mama’s Baby,” he screeches along with the television, and then perks up again. “Oh, yeah, Davey called. He said he needs your help down at his place today, moving stuff around.”

Katherine bows her head and groans, letting her hair fall over her face. “Why me? Why not you?”

“I have to work later. And also I’m sure he wants to get you out of the house.”

“Let me be a sad lesbian in peace,” Katherine wails, but she gets off the counter and goes to brush her teeth.

-

Davey Jacob’s place, Katherine can assume, is the flower shop he runs after inheriting it from a relative. Most of his family lives out-of-state, so how he quite ended up in San Diego is a mystery—but he is and always has been here. 

When she arrives and pushes open the door, the bell dings; he’s handing a bouquet over to an old woman and giving her a smile to put the roses to shame. “Have a good one.”

The place is a mess, Katherine has to admit—cardboard boxes and flowerpots cover the counter and floor. The woman gives Katherine a sleepy smile as she shuffles past. Davey brightens considerably when he sees her standing there.

“It’s my favorite!” He lunges across the counter and hugs her. “I’m so glad you could make it. I need help. A lot of it.”

“I can see,” she says, and fine, she lets the hug linger a bit longer because lately she needs hugs and he gives some of the best ones on the planet. “What the hell is all this stuff?”

“Literally don’t even ask me. We got a whole bunch of shipments and I have to sort through it all and—ugh. Kill me. But I’ll show you how.”

He comes out from behind the counter and plops onto the floor. She does too, thanking God she doesn’t care about the leggings she’s wearing as she sits in scattered soil. “So,” he says after he’s given her the task of separating boxes with different labels, “how are you doing?”

She hates how people ask her that. Even him, when she knows he wants to hear the truth. It’s like an icebreaker. 

“All things considered,” she says, “alright.”

“You still goin’ to therapy?” 

She huffs. “Are you kidding? Crutchie and Jack would probably spoon my eyes out if I tried to stop.”

Davey laughs. “Do you feel like it’s helping, though?”

“I mean…” She lifts one small box close to her face to inspect the label, then puts it into a pile. “It hurts, so at least it’s doing something.”

“I just can’t imagine,” he says. “I really am sorry. You’ve been on my mind recently.”

She smiles at him. “You’re too good to me. Thanks. I’m coping. And having Jack around helps, believe it or not. He makes life seem less serious.”

“That Jack. How is he, anyway?”

She looks at him, and he studiously avoids her eye. Raising her eyebrows and biting her lip to hide a knowing smile, she says, “He’s alright. Talks about you quite a bit.”

“He does?” Davey says, too quickly, and she can see on his face he’s mortified for sounding so eager.

She just shrugs. “Yeah.”

He elbows her. “You know everything! Don’t string me along.”

She elbows him back, laughing. “Hey. If you want him, take him. He was screaming along to Johnny Cash this morning.”

Davey winces.

“If you want him,” she repeats, because this is a good change of subject. She prefers not thinking about herself.

“In _other_ news,” Davey says, making them both laugh. “Really, in other news, you know Roberta?”

Of course she knows Roberta. The stray pit bull that Davey found a few months ago and took in, who everybody in a ten-mile radius has fallen in love with. “Of course. I’m her biggest fan.”

“A couple weeks ago, she had ten puppies. _Ten.”_

“Holy shit,” Katherine gasps. “What! Did you even see that coming?”

“No,” he whines. “And now my house is overrun with dog.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“The reality of being overrun with dog is that I haven’t slept in weeks and it smells like a farm,” Davey says. “And I’m a cat person anyway.”

“I would help you dog-sit anytime,” Katherine says, sorting out the last box.

“Please. I’ll take everything I can get.” Davey looks up when the bell dings, and a customer walks in. He hurries behind the counter.

Katherine watches him, sighing heavily. So life is strange and hard, but she has puppies and an amusement park corner on her side. She’s still got a chance, and she’s not about to let that magician disappear on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! first chapter done. kind of brief and slightly mysterious (shall be revealed exactly what kath is struggling with later on...) ++i’ll try to update this on thursdays, so be on the lookout!  
> leave a comment telling me your thoughts, if you wish!! and visit me on tumblr @ livingchancy :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am! this is kinda short and kinda filler (i am the worst at writing exposition i PROMISE this story will get more exciting) and also a rather late update but....enjoy

David Jacobs lives in a condo a couple blocks down from Kath, very similar to hers and very small. It’s between what they have dubbed “the hippie house” with rainbow peace signs in the windows and a house with a broken door where a guy got busted for selling meth. 

Davey’s house is neither of those things. It’s simple and small, painted grey with neat white shutters and a pale blue front door. It looks rather funny where it is; suburbia enters ragtag coastal city.

Katherine walks right up, past the hippie van with an _All You Need Is Love!_ bumper sticker. He’s invited her over today to see the puppies and sure enough when she rings the doorbell she hears barking from inside.

Davey runs up to the closed screen door, gives her a flushed grin, and snags an eager-looking pit bull by the collar. “Ro, down,” he scolds, then addresses Kath. “Come on in. Don't worry; she won't hurt you, but she does jump.”

Indeed Roberta jumps, but Kath’s been so deprived of dogs for the last few years of her life that she just laughs and falls back against the wall and takes it in stride. Davey holds her by the collar to prevent too much damage, watching the dog wag her tail as Katherine kneels and pets her.

“Dogs, man,” Davey says. “They have a way. If you’d told cat person me of a year ago I’d love a dog this much I would have laughed.”

Katherine smiles, rubbing Roberta’s ears and babbling nonsense at her. “Right?”

“Well, puppies are this way,” Davey says, leading her through his house (which is the same format as hers) to a room sectioned off by a baby gate. Inside it is an entire heap of tiny squeaking puppies.

“I’m going to have a heart attack,” Katherine says when she can form words.

He laughs, watching her throw a leg over the babygate and run into the pile of puppies. “Hello!” she gasps, sitting down and letting them climb over her. She picks one up and holds it to her face. “Oh my God, how old are they?”

“Four weeks, I believe,” Davey says, smiling.

“Are you keeping them--oh my god, it’s so wrinkly I’m going to cry.”

“All of them? Hell no. But maybe a couple.” Davey takes down the gate, enters, and reattaches it to the wall. “Would you and Jack want one?”

“Please,” she says, cuddling another one against her cheek. “But don’t let Jack meet them yet, because if he sees them all he’s going to want them all and he’s Jack Kelly so no matter how much I tell him he’s ridiculous we would have ten puppies in our house.”

Davey smiles, leaning in and rubbing the ears of the creature in Katherine’s arms.

“Have you named them all?” she asks.

“Yeah, kind of temporary names. People can change them once they’re adopted, but I’m a massive nerd so I named them all after elements.” 

She looks at him, disbelieving. “Like in the periodic table?”

“The one you’re holding, that’s Magnesium. The one over there with the white spot is Beryllium, uh, Helium, Mercury, Lithium, Sodium, that black one is Phosphorus--”

Katherine shakes her head. He is a piece of work. “Did you say there are ten?”

“Indeed. We also have Hydrogen, Iodine, and--Carbon? Where’s Carbon?” 

“In the nonmetals,” Katherine says.

Davey high-fives her in a nerd bonding moment.

Then he stands up. “I bet I know. Be right back. Sarah!” he shouts, crawling over to the babygate and shouting into the hall. “Hey! Sarah!”

“What?” a voice yells back.

“Do you have Carbon?”

“In my body? I do hope so,” comes the answer, growing closer. 

A person peeks into the room, a brown puppy in their arms, and when Katherine glances up she nearly vomits in shock.

“I know you!” Sarah the magician herself says, eyes wide at the sight of Katherine.

“I know you too,” Katherine manages.

Davey looks between them. “I am clearly missing something.”

“We met,” Sarah says, clambering over the gate and setting Carbon free. He toddles over to Davey, who scoops him into his lap. “Out on the street, while I was doing one of my shows. She stayed after.”

“No way,” Davey insists. “Kath is the girl you were telling me about?”

The gay alarms in Katherine’s head start ringing. _She told him about me?_

Sarah smiles broadly at Kath as she sits in front of her, who blushes. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she admits.

“Hey, yeah, I...have a show later this afternoon. I was actually hoping maybe I’d run into you again,” Sarah says, with all the confidence in the world. “I’m so sorry for just taking off on you like that--something came up. It’s all resolved. Don’t worry.”

“So wait,” Katherine says, “how do you know Davey?”

Sarah throws her hands up. “Have you told _no one_ about me?”

He throws his hands up right back. “What do you want me to do, make t-shirts with your picture that say ‘this is my sister’?” 

Sarah’s eyes light up. “Your birthday’s this month, right?”

He flips her off, and she flips him off, and Katherine is looking between them in amazement. Davey having a sister sounds like a practical joke, and seeing two people she knows very separately act like siblings is _weird._

Davey smiles at Kath then, sheepishly. “Sarah’s my little sister. She’s staying here with me right now. I think you--you moved in like three weeks, a month ago?”

Katherine shakes her head. “This is a lot,” she says, with a laugh. She can pick out similarities between them now--eye color and shape, set of the mouth, inflection in certain words. She’s never had siblings, so the idea of one is foreign concept--except maybe in Jack, since he is like her brother more than anything else.

“Yes, I’m sure. Sorry about that,” Sarah looks down as she giggles, her long hair falling over her face. Carbon is laying in Davey’s lap, nibbling on his hand with tiny sharp teeth, and a few other puppies are still crowding around them.

Phosphorus starts falling asleep on Katherine. “So,” she says to Sarah, “which one of you wanted to name them all elements?”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “My vote was to name them all magic-related things, but he went off about how he’s older and the moon is in aquarius and so he got to decide. So this is what happens when you leave a science major in charge of dogs.”

“First of all, that’s not the--” The doorbell rings before he can finish. “Come on, Carby baby. Let’s leave these mean girls,” he croons, carrying the dog out of the room to go get the door. 

Kath looks back up and their eyes meet. Sarah seems to be deep in thought, her eyes searching over Katherine with that softness both she and her brother seem to possess. 

“So,” Katherine says.

“So,” Sarah replies, doing this adorable thing where she giggles with her mouth closed. 

They stare at each other for another moment, and Katherine thinks if this were a straight romcom they’d have been making out like yesterday. She swears she can hear sexy saxophone music playing. Her heart starts pounding, and she panics.

“How long have you been doing magic?” she blurts.

Sarah blinks, clearly startled from the moment herself. “Um…” she laughs, then laughs some more, eyes darting up toward the ceiling as she thinks. “I got a little magic book trick in like seventh grade, and I got really good at it, so I learned how to do harder tricks, and then I started performing just to make some extra money, and then I moved here and then it’s now.”

“It’s now,” Katherine repeats. “Do you think magic is real?”

“Not in the sense of endless rainbow scarves,” Sarah says. She grins. “But I think the universe looks out for us a bit. How else would it have led me to you?”

Katherine turns red. “So smooth,” she says, teasing but also completely serious.

Sarah watches her laugh, her own smile beaming. “This might be… I don’t know, kind of forward,” she says, “but do you think you may wanna give me your number?”

-

Katherine marches straight to the small tattoo parlor after she leaves Davey’s house, bangs the door open, and storms up to the desk.

Crutchie, sitting behind it, looks up. He is Jack’s best friend besides Katherine, and he’s fucking great. Both of his small arms are covered in tattoos, she’s never seen him without a leather jacket on, and he wields crutches with tiny spikes glued to them. 

“You look like a mom on a mission,” he says. “Would you like to speak to the manager?”

“Did you know David Jacobs has a sister?” Katherine demands.

Crutchie has to think about it. “I think I’ve heard Jack mention it once or twice. Why?”

“Because I met her on the way home from class and I’m gay and I just learned today that she and Davey are siblings. Jack knows? Where is he?”

“What does he know?” Jack asks, stuffing almost an entire poptart into his mouth as he emerges from whatever dark breakfast pastry wielding corner he was in.

“That Davey has a sister?”

“Oh,” he says, spewing crumbs, “yeah. I thought you knew that.”

Crutchie rolls his eyes at Jack. “You only know that because you’re obsessed with him.”

Jack weaves through the currently-empty parlor and hops up to sit in front of Kath on the counter, followed by Albert, another one of the workers here. 

“How in the hell did I never know? Could he not have tipped me off to having a cute gay sister?” she asks.

“Well. Davey can tend to be… um…” Crutchie bites his lip.

“Oblivious?” Albert suggests. “Forgetful? Not understanding of the fact that other people don’t automatically know something just because he does?”

“Slow down,” Jack says, pouting. “He’s trying his best.”

“She’s a street magician,” Katherine says, putting a hand on her heart and doing the gay groan. “And she is so amazingly _cute.”_

“Well, if she’s anything like her brother, I’m sure she is. Smart, too,” Jack says.

Crutchie pretends to vomit.

“I’m gonna tattoo a picture of Davey onto your ass,” Albert says.

“Do it. No balls.” Jack punches him lightly in the chest.

“So what’s the sitch? Have you talked to her?” Crutchie cocks his head.

Katherine’s smile suddenly threatens to split her face open again. “Well, I met her on the street, and then she had an emergency, but I went to see Davey’s dogs and she was there and she gave me her number and I swear we almost kissed like four times.” By the end of it she’s little more than squealing, as are all of the boys around her.

Crutchie hugs himself, beaming at her. “That’s so cute I need to punch something.”

“Punch Jack,” Katherine offers, sticking her tongue out when he glares at her.

“Tell me everything. Keep me updated. Make me sick of this. I want all of the lesbian get together,” Crutchie says. “I want you in here every day until you guys are married.”

Jack scowls. “Where is this sentiment about my Davey obsession?”

“I want the lesbian love story, not the punk and pastel gay disaster you and him have going on,” Crutchie retorts.

Jack opens his mouth, then closes it. “You know, I literally can’t argue with that.”

-

It’s a down day.

She opens her eyes the next morning and knows it’s going to be a day of nothing, a day where the sun won’t touch her skin and breathing feels like hard labor. The sun streams in through purple WalMart purchased curtains; she groans quietly and curls up on her side.

God, she hates days like this. She doesn’t have them as often as when the world first screeched to a halt--back then, every day was lost--but they are still a presence in her life. The world is always spinning, and she tries her hardest to spin with it but sometimes she gets dizzy. Sometimes she just has to fall.

She drifts in and out of sleep. It’s hot under the covers and her hair tickles the back of her neck and in a couple of waking moments she tries to cry just to get herself back on track but she can’t feel anything.

Jack notices, because of course he does. He knocks gently on the door, and she squeezes her eyes shut hard when she hears it creak open. “Kath?”

“What time is it?” she mumbles.

“Around two in the afternoon. I was worried about you.” There’s the sound of footsteps on wood as he approaches the bed. “Down day?”

She nods, face against the pillows.

He lifts the blankets and gets under with her. She tries to ignore him, still facing away, but he tugs lightly on her curls until she turns toward him with a grunt of annoyance. “Why aren’t you at work?”

He tucks a hand under his head, hair ruffled and dark eyes smug. “I wanted to spend time with you, darling.”

“Ugh, I’ll vomit on you.”

“Just do it in my mouth please.”

“Fuck you,” Katherine whines. “Let me sleep.”

“Nah, they let me off early today, since I worked an extra shift the other week,” he explains, suddenly ready to be serious. “Is there anything I can do?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you wanna be alone?”

She shakes her head again.

Jack reaches down and picks up the sheet, pulling it over both of their heads to make a fort over them. Katherine closes her eyes and lives in the small space, the smell of the Old Spice soap Jack uses and the softness of the mattress. 

“I don’t know why I try if I’m just going to die someday,” she tells him. “And if I’m anything like him, I’ll die hating my family.”

Jack shakes his head. “You’re not like your father, Kath.”

“How do you know? You never met him.” She gets choked up. “I don’t get why I’m so broken up over it. We didn’t love each other. He didn’t even know me.”

“You might be broken up you never got a chance to let him.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” she begs. “Distract me.”

“How about the Jacobs siblings?”

“Right. I should text her, when I’m back to real life.” Katherine looks up at Jack. “Why does she live with him anyway?”

Jack shrugs. “She moved in with him super recently; I think they’re like two years apart. I dunno, like, details, but I’m pretty sure what he told me was that somethin’ shitty happened to her at home and she just wanted to get out.”

“He must be crazy about her.”

“Oh, yeah.”

They bask in a few more moments of silence. “Think you might wanna get up?” Jack asks. 

“No,” Kath admits.

“Want me to go or stay?”

“Stay.” She hugs his arm.

“You’ll feel better, I promise. If you get up and get dressed and you brush your goddamn teeth because that breath is _nasty--”_

She gasps and reaches over to hit him. He rolls away, laughing as she swats at his side and he whacks a pillow back at her half-heartedly. Eventually they both break out from under the sheet and sit up in order to have a full-on pillow fight. Jack shrieks as Katherine finally manages to beat him back far enough to knock him onto the floor.

He stands, catching the pillow she throws at him as a follow-up attack. “Come out onto the couch. I can get blankets for you if you still wanna be lazy. But just join the world. Text the magician.”

So she pulls her hair into a ponytail, and she sits in the blanket burrow he’s created on the couch and the sun feels warm on her skin even if she’s doomed to numbness for the rest of today.

While Jack cleans the kitchen, Katherine manages to pick up her phone and open up the contact she created for Sarah.

“Oh, what the hell,” she whispers aloud, and she sends a text.

_when’s your next show?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay wow! say hi on tumblr @livingchancy and leave me comments if ya like because i live for validation<33


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oi! let's pretend i'm not a mess and did not promise updates on thursdays. this chapter consists of kath's sadness:(, messy lesbians, and jack and kath sweetness. enjoy yaselves

Sarah’s next show is on a Tuesday, coincidentally right after Katherine’s therapy once again.

She wakes up late, because of course she does. Jack shoves a plate of toast at her as she stumbles into the kitchen late in the afternoon, still pulling on a shirt and attempting to rake a brush through her hair all at once. “Acceptable?” she asks, shoving a piece of bread into her mouth.

She’s opted for a nicer outfit than the leggings or sweatpants she’d normally wear to therapy--because dammit, it’s _therapy_. Most of the time she can’t be assed to spiff herself up to go cry for an hour.

But she’s got someone to impress today--how about that?

So she’s dug a white skirt from the depths of her closet and has a bit of perfume on. Jack leans over the counter and rights a strand of her hair, tossing it over her shoulder. “You look fine. And _how_ do you get your hair so curly?”

Katherine smiles. “Water and prayer.”

He has always been obsessed with her curls, ever since she met him in childhood. Honestly, she’s just used to how much he can amuse himself by pulling on them and trying to make them bounce.

“Fair enough. You look great. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She smiles at him one last time as she hurries out the door. Really, she doesn’t know what she’d do without him.

-

Katherine’s therapist is named Medda; she’s got bright, patient eyes and a voice that always sounds amused about jokes only she can hear. She’s on close terms with pretty much all of Kath’s friends, especially Jack; in fact, Medda was Jack’s counselor when he was young and stumbling through the foster care system, until she at last adopted him. 

It was easy, then, for Jack to shove her into Medda’s office when all she wanted to do was shut out the world; Katherine had grown up with her.

Her office is cheerful, with a coral reef scene wall painted by Jack and shelves of books and board games. Most of what she does is counsel kids, but adult talk therapy is in her schedule too. 

She smiles when Kath enters. “And how are you today?”

Katherine takes a seat, sets down her bag, and sighs softly. “Tired but functional.”

“Any low days?”

“A couple this week. I’ve just been thinking a lot, lately--why even try if I’m just going to die? I guess everything that happened has reminded me of death.”

Medda looks interested. “You never thought about death before you lost your father?”

No. Honestly not. Before the car crash six months ago, before her mother whispered the words into the phone, before she collapsed onto hardwood in she and Jack’s hallway and couldn’t get up for two days, mortality never occurred to her. 

“I never thought that death could happen to someone like him,” she whispers. He was a dynamic force tearing through her life, like a hurricane or a tornado. And you couldn’t kill a tornado, Katherine had thought. But it took the death of Joseph Pulitzer for her to realize that he wasn’t a storm; he was a human.

She doesn’t realize she is crying until she tries to take in a breath and chokes on it. Medda pushes her a box of tissues and waits.

“Sorry,” she whispers, like she always does, and Medda just shakes her head with gentle eyes.

“Did you love him?” she asks.

Kath wipes her eyes one last time. “I don’t know. All this has fucked up what I think love even is. I mean, all we ever did was fight. I never felt accepted by him. But we still called each other and--here I am bawling over him being gone. I feel evil because him being gone was what I always wanted.”

“You’re not evil. You’re confused,” Medda says. “You’re a human.”

That’s the problem.

It goes uphill. “I have some good news,” Katherine offers, still sniffling. She’s used to that, too, brightening up still with red eyes. “I met somebody nice this week.”

Medda’s eyebrows shoot up. “Did you?”

Katherine tells her all about her magician. “And you know Davey, David Jacobs?”

Medda can’t help rolling her eyes. “You mean the only word in Jack’s vocabulary?”

“That’s the one. She’s his sister. Isn’t that wild? I’m going to another one of her shows right after this.”

“A magician, huh?” Medda leans back in her chair. “What a family the Jacobs are.”

“Right? Honestly, what else do they have up their sleeves? Besides endless handkerchiefs.”

“Magicians, they’re good at keeping secrets,” Medda warns, in her half-joking half-not tone. “Watch yourself around them.”

Kath laughs. “I trust her.”

“That’s all well and good. But babe, when it really comes down to it, there’s one person you can trust with your life, and that’s--”

“Myself, I know.”

“Just be careful, smartass,” Medda cautions with a grin. “Love can be hard when you’re still sore. Don’t rush into anything. I know it’s useless advice because of how deeply impulsive you are,” she says laughingly when she sees the look on Kath’s face, “but try to slow down here.”

“Slowing down is not an ability I possess,” Katherine says. “But I know what’s good for myself.”

“We all think we do.”

“And I trust what I think,” Katherine answers, smiling at the look Medda gives her that translates into _my son has corrupted you_. “I’ll be careful.”

-

So directly after a conversation about approaching this situation with care, Katherine finds herself in a Starbucks bathroom with Sarah Jacobs, one of her legs up in the sink. 

The space is small, and they’re stumbling into each other and giggling at nothing and using way too many paper towels. “I swear I’m fine,” Katherine says as Sarah fusses over a scrape on her knee. (It’s not fine, it hurts like a bitch, but she feels quite poorly about this sort-of-first impression.)

“Here, let’s clean it again,” Sarah says, turning the sink back on and moving Kath’s leg into the spray but Katherine’s not expecting it. She shrieks, falling forward and then backward when the edge of the sink knocks the breath out of her stomach and winding up in a heap on the ground. Sarah falls with her, lost in apologies and laughter. They sit there wheezing surrounded by shredded paper towels and small puddles.

The story behind this scrape is almost as terribly _her_ as the situation she’s in right now. She was walking from therapy to meet Sarah, saw her on a new corner counting the money in her hat, and was mesmerized. 

Being a top-tier useless lesbian, she was too busy staring to see the raised square of pavement that caught her toe and sent her sprawling right in front of the cute girl she was staring at.

And here they are.

There’s a knock on the door. “Hello?” somebody shouts from outside.

Katherine, although now embarrassed about holding other people up, still can’t breathe, so Sarah answers for her. “Just a sec!”

“What’s going _on_ in there?” mutters the voice.

“Come on, let’s go. They think we’re having sex,” Sarah stage-whispers.

“You mean this _isn’t_ sex?”

But she hauls herself to her feet, shuts off the sink, and hobbles after Sarah. They come out of the singular bathroom together, with red faces, and pretend to ignore the incredulous stares.

The real story is better than whatever anyone could be imagining.

“You’re just like your brother, you know that?” Katherine asks when they’re back out on the street.

“I am not!” Sarah insists with a laugh. “My brother would have taken you to the ER.”

“That’s fair.” She loops a finger through the new rip in her skirt.

Sarah’s walking gait is gentle and careful. Katherine can sense the difference in energy between them. Her words and steps come out fast, and Sarah speaks carefully, like she’s putting a puzzle together with each sentence.

“So… wanna go to the beach?” Katherine blurts. Sarah looks over at her, and she immediately backtracks. “I mean, not gay! Not in a gay way, not as like a date or anything. Just, you know, to have stimulating conversation. We’re close to me and Jack’s and there’s a back way down to the ocean.” She backtracks again. “I mean, unless you want it to be a date--”

A little laugh from Sarah sends her spinning again. “Alright. Ocean. No label on the beach, we can go there and be gay and straight all at once.”

“Sounds like one of your magic tricks.”

“I speak in riddles. Mostly everything I say sounds like a magic trick.”

“That’s better than choking on everything you try to say,” Katherine replies, flushed at her own stammering.

Sarah bumps her shoulder gently with her own. “No, you’re cute. I like your choking.”

“Well, I like your riddles. I suppose we’ve reached a stalemate.”

“I suppose. Is your knee okay?”

Katherine rolls her head back to give Sarah an exasperated look. “I’m fine, mother.”

They walk across the soft sand in late afternoon sun and talk. Katherine learns about Sarah. She loves the idea of books, but lacks the patience to actually read them; she loves Elvis and thinks the Beatles are overrated; she has nail polish that changes color with temperature; she keeps four hairbrushes at a time because she can’t ever stop losing them; she can’t go see movies in theaters because she starts laughing during sad or uncomfortable scenes out of some bizarre reflex.

Kath gets hungry, so they stop at a tiny seafood restaurant overlooking the beach. The whole time she’s fidgeting, dying to ask Sarah if this is a date or not, because she likes labels and certainty. Sarah is clearly fine to let things be what they are without human intervention; Kath is cursed with being as human as they come.

They get a table for two and laugh over how small it is. “Hey, it’s romantic,” Sarah says. “We can be like those Disney dogs that ate spaghetti.”

“ _Those Disney dogs?_ ” Katherine echoes, appalled. “Um. Do you mean Lady and Tramp?”

“I don’t know Disney that well. Sue me!”

“I fully plan to.”

After ordering a lemonade, Sarah says, “That reminds me; what do you do for work?”

“Part-time waitressing,” Kath sighs. “And I live with Jack; he’s a tattoo artist.”

Sarah winces and smirks at the same time. “I am so sorry.”

Katherine laughs. “Don’t ever tell him, but I actually love him to death.”

“You in college?”

“I dropped out,” Katherine admits, feeling her face fan hot. She hates that she did, but she knows it’s the last thing she’d be able to handle right now and if she’s got a temporary place in the world without it, why not do what’s good for herself? Jack has never gone to college nor had plans of doing so, and he’s turned out (relatively) fine. 

Sarah doesn’t pry. “I’m not in either. I graduated high school and… well. Hard things myself too. I moved out here with David and I do my magic tricks.”

“Life is so full of hard things,” Katherine mutters, mostly to herself. The ocean is a distance away, and she imagines the thunder of it.

But Sarah is still here, and she hears it. She reaches across the table and grabs one of Kath’s hands in her own, still cold from holding her lemonade. “This doesn’t have to be hard. You and me? Let’s make it easy. I think we both need easy.”

The part of Katherine that thrives on spite and impulse and excitement hates the idea of easy, wants to love hard and forget what consequences are. That’s the old her, riding life like a rollercoaster.

There’s a new part of her now, though, one that formed after her father’s death, and it is so unbelievably drawn to Sarah’s soft dark eyes and the idea of something that doesn’t hurt. _You can only take so much hurt before you don’t want it anymore,_ she thinks.

She squeezes Sarah’s hand. “Easy is brilliant.”

-

Katherine heads to Davey’s flower shop after her morning diner shift the next day. The little familiar bell dings as she pushes open the door. 

Davey’s sitting backwards on the counter, back turned to the register. This on its own isn’t too strange--that is, until Katherine catches a glimpse of Jack’s head behind the counter and nearly has an aneurysm. 

She considers giving them privacy but then remembers they’re in public, thank you very much, and need to be yelled at. “Really?” she whines, keeping a good distance.

Davey jolts and glances over his shoulder. “Oh, Kath! Hey!”

“Oh my God. At least lock the door.”

Jack pokes his head up from behind the desk, holding a permanent marker. He’s got a small pink flower tucked behind his ear. “Huh?”

Davey lifts his legs and spins around to face her. She sinks against a display of sunflowers in relief when she sees that his pants are fully zipped and his shoes and ankles are covered in doodles. “Lock the door for what?” he asks.

Jack, probably because he is still on his knees, gets it. He sticks his tongue between his teeth and gives her a suggestive grin.

Kath waves a hand. “If you don’t know I won’t tell you.”

“What brings you here, Kath?” Davey questions, hopping off the counter.

“Just got off work, didn’t wanna go home alone. What are you guys up to?”

Davey lifts a leg. “Jack decorated me.”

“I was driving Albert and Crutchie up the walls so they told me to go get some energy out,” Jack says, sheepish. “I forgot to refill my ADHD meds this week. No biggie really, but I’m a little bit more than I usually am. You know how it goes.”

“I’m just really glad you weren’t doing what I thought.”

Davey shakes his head. “What did you think?” 

He looks between Jack and Kath, seems to remember the position he was in, and goes pale. “Ah. I see.”

“Spitters are quitters,” Jack says, taking the flower down from his ear. “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Davey swats him on the shoulder. “Behave.”

Kath leans on the counter and sighs heavily. Davey turns to her. “So I think you have a right to know that my sister’s obsessed with you.”

She turns red and can’t help giggling. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. All last night she was raving about you. She kept interrupting our nightly round of Jeopardy.”

“You guys watch Jeopardy together?” Jack asks.

“Nearly every night. And play it too. Whoever loses has to sleep in the crappier bed,” Davey says.

Jack’s crooked smile emerges, and Kath sees Davey melt. “That’s so nerdy and adorable.”

Katherine’s heart is fluttering. “Was she really talking about me?”

“So much. It was sweet. I think you’re something she needs right now, Kath. I--well, I just wanna say, thank you. For coming into her life when you did.”

“I owe much more thanks to her,” Kath admits.

Davey laughs. “I would give you the protective older brother ‘don’t you dare hurt my baby sister’ warning, but I trust her judgement. And I trust you.”

-

Crutchie doesn’t look up when she enters the tattoo parlor, Jack in tow. “If you are Jack I am tired of you.”

“Jack and company,” Katherine says.

He perks up when he hears her voice and hugs her tight over the counter. “Rejoice! A person with common sense has entered this building! How’s the lesbian love story coming?”

“It’s building,” she says, unable to hold back a smile. “We went on a beach walk yesterday, and ate some lunch together, and we decided to keep things between us easy.”

Crutchie sighs dreamily. “Oh, I love love.”

“And apparently she’s been talking to Davey about me, so who wants to be the flower girl at our wedding?”

Both of their tattooed arms shoot into the air. “Fuck you, I could throw flowers better!” Jack shouts. “My almost-sorta-kinda-maybe-Kath-thought-I-was-giving-him-a-blowjob boyfriend sells flowers. Beat that.”

Crutchie swats at his hand. “Your sentimental ass is gonna want to give a really long speech and you’ll start crying halfway through.”

He opens his mouth to argue and then lowers his arm. “Fair.”

“You cry a lot.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Jack says. 

“I remember watching The Notebook with you,” Katherine says. “Boy it was ugly.”

Jack looks ready to choke up all over again. “Love never dies, man.”

Crutchie nudges him. “You are a deceiving first impression if there ever was one. You’re covered in tattoos and you have severe resting bitchface, but you cry about pretty flowershop boys.”

“Speaking of, who’s coming to the Jack and Davey wedding?” Jack asks.

“I would, except I’ll be dead by the time there is one because you two can’t get your shit together.”

-

Katherine comes into Jack’s bedroom that night in search of a comfortable t-shirt to wear to bed. He watches her as she digs through his closet, book tucked under her arm. “Doing okay?” he asks. 

“I should be asking you that. Is everything fine without your meds?”

He lets out a long sigh. “My sleep schedule is getting fucked. And I almost got into a fistfight at the store because everything gets on my nerves. And I feel a little dizzy from withdrawal stuff. But otherwise, sure, ’m fine.”

She pats his head. “You’ll get them in a couple days.”

“So things’re going well with Sarah, huh?”

“Very. She said she wanted us to be easy. You know, that the rest of life is hard but that the two of us shouldn’t have to be. And it kinda makes me feel like shit how appealing easiness sounds, you know? Because it’s proof that all this has changed me. Before I would do everything the hard way.”

“That’s not always healthy, though,” Jack reminds her. “For now, easy sounds like a good deal.”

She looks at him. “Is Davey easy to you?”

“I guess,” he answers, after a minute of thought. “He’s… well, he feels safe to me. It’s not really complicated with him, we’re just shy.”

“So he’s your easy?”

“No,” Jack says, and he smiles a little at her. “You are.”

She smiles back at him, hauling herself to her feet and pausing in his doorway. “Sleep well, you crazy boy.”

His eyes glint through the semi-darkness. “You too, you crazy girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave comments if u want! and drop by on tumblr @livingchancy :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter could alternatively be called: i love spot conlons grumpy ass and had to change the rating on this to teen because i realized how many Bad Words there are.  
> but hey! this is a mess and filled with love for jack kelly and a lot sadder and denser than most chaps so far so enjoyyyy

The doorbell rings early the next Monday morning, waking Katherine from her sleep. “Jack,” she yells into oblivion, pointlessly because she knows it’s going to be her who gets up and answers it. Even so she tries again. “Jack Kelly!”

“Whaddaya yellin’ about?” moans a drowsy voice from beside her.

She remembers the nightmare that sent him into her room last night. When she was younger, she used to have a flash of fear whenever she woke up in the same bed as Jack that they’d had sex; now she knows that isn’t ever going to happen. Sleeping next to him (though she’d die before telling him) is comforting sometimes.

“Get the damn door,” she whines.

He burrows further into her pillows and whines right back. “I’m not the damn maid.”

The doorbell rings again. Katherine shoves off her flowery covers, swings her legs down to the floor, and sighs loudly to let him know she’s pissed. “You’re going to pay for this.”

“Promise?”

She groans as she emerges into the hallway, rubbing her eyes. 

She’s expecting it to be some stupid thing he ordered online, so she is not prepared for the sight of Sarah Jacobs. Shit, she thinks, because she can’t keep her waiting for any longer but she certainly looks like she just rolled out of bed. She makes a weak attempt at smoothing down her hair as she opens the door.

Sarah’s smile is tired but dazzling. “Hey, you guys coming to see the puppies? I came to grab you because Dave’s gotta run soon, but he wants you guys to come. Mostly he wants to see Jack.”

Oh, shit. She completely forgot about the plans they made a couple days ago. With Jack’s birthday on the horizon, Katherine needs him to meet the puppies in order for her to pick one out for him so she can give it to him as a present.

“We’ll be right over,” Kath says, and she marches to wake him. 

-

They blindfold him the minute he steps into Davey’s condo, guiding him carefully to the puppy room. He rocks back and forth in anticipation as Davey takes down the gate. 

“I feel like you’re leading me to a volcano for a sacrifice,” Jack admits. Kath and Davey share a look that says he freaks me out but he’s still great.

The puppies squeak as they scrabble over each other, bigger than the last time Katherine saw them. She looks down at them and thinks about how much faster they grow older than humans. Life is short for a dog. They don’t drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what they’re here for.

She doesn’t realize she’s getting lost--that’s what Medda calls it when she zones out into her thoughts, “getting lost”--until a scream pulls her out of her thoughts. She whips toward Jack, thinking something’s wrong, but he’s grinning like there’s no tomorrow. Davey’s just taken off the blindfold.

Jack collapses onto the floor, letting the puppies crawl all over him and shrieking with ecstatic laughter. Davey watches him, all starry-eyed.

“I can’t believe you--oh my God--how old--there are so many--” he stutters, sitting up. Phosphorus, the only solid black puppy in the bunch, clambers bravely up his jeans with tiny ears flapping.

“Don’t literally have a heart attack,” Davey laughs from the doorway. Katherine sits next to Jack, patting Phosphorus on the back. She would tell him that he gets to pick one out, but it’s supposed to be a surprise on his birthday and Davey’s right, he’d probably die.

First he tries to pet all ten puppies at once; then, he focuses on the insistent Phosphorus. He laughs and makes fun of Davey when he learns about the puppies’ names. 

“Phosphorus,” he repeats in a squeaky adoring voice to the clumsy pit bull in his lap. “Is that your name? It suits you. You’re lucky Davey’s a nerd, huh? I love you. Yes. I love you so much. I just met you and I love you.”

In response, the dog kisses him on the nose. 

Katherine looks at Davey and smiles absently; she can tell how very badly he wants to take Phosphorus’s place.

“Is Phosphorus your favorite?” she asks Jack.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “He’s different than the other ones.”

“You like different?”

Jack laughs. “I go crazy when things are the same.”

-

Medda watches the way Kath sits down. She does that a lot, guesses how she feels just from her body language. Usually she guesses right. “Better days?”

“A mix of better and worse ones.”

Medda smiles. “A mix is a start.”

“I don’t want a start,” Katherine sighs. “I want an end.”

“To…”

“To feeling like this. To not feeling like myself.”

“You are yourself. You’re different, but you’re still you.”

“I wouldn’t be this version of me if my dad hadn’t died. I’m not myself anymore,” Kath responds, getting frustrated.

Medda’s infuriatingly patient. “But he did. And this is you. The things in our lives change us, and change doesn’t mean you can’t still be you. That’s the purpose--the secret to life is that it changes you.”

Katherine rests her chin in her hand, staring down at the dull green carpet on the floor. She feels small. She hates feeling that way. “What a shitty secret.”

“Sometimes.” Medda pauses. “Can you do me a favor? I want you to tell me some things that have changed you for the better. Tell me the things that have made you who you are that you feel good about.”

“Well… Jack. I wouldn’t be any kind of me without him.”

“Good. He’s changed me too.”

“All my friends, and you, and the house where I grew up. And…”

Medda’s smile is a shadow, subtle but there. “And a certain magician?”

Kath grows warm thinking about Sarah. “I don’t really know if she’s _changed_ me yet.”

“I think she has. You’re sparkling just a bit more ever since you came across her.” Medda looks at Katherine in the way she always has, the way that says though Katherine is not quite her daughter she comes close. “Sparkling is good. Keep doing it.”

-

Sarah calls her the day before Jack’s birthday. She loves getting calls from Sarah.

“You’re needed at the flowershop to discuss birthday plans,” Sarah says.

“Jack too?”

“Nope. Just you. Surprises are going on.”

Jack, he likes surprises. The idea of not knowing what’s coming thrills him, gets him going somehow. Katherine can’t stand them. The old her took the unexpected in stride, but life brought her to a screeching halt and she hasn’t gotten back her old speed. Her father’s death--that was a surprise. It was shit, and it’s been shit. So no surprises, thank you very much. 

It does beg the question of whether or not it would have hurt more or less had she seen it coming.

She’s started doing this thing where she has therapy sessions with herself.

“So,” Sarah says into the phone, with her wonderful voice. She is so very alive. It’s a relief, being around someone as alive as Sarah when Katherine dwells on death as much as she does. “You’ll show up?”

“I always do.”

It might seem like her biggest enemy early in the morning, but when she’s fighting the night hour, she always regrets when she doesn’t. Showing up, it’s not the worst thing.

-

David Jacobs is a flower extraordinaire. He knows how to cut the stems to make them last as long as possible, the recipe for a 7-up based mixture to boost rose growth, that keeping fruit nearby kills flowers in the blink of an eye. 

It is no surprise, then, that he uses his expertise and a shipment of damaged flowers in order to plan Jack’s birthday. It’s a yearly tradition to fill Jack’s bed up with something insane on his birthday. They have their secret flowershop meeting, and the plan is set in stone.

As always, there’s a party at Medda’s. It’s Jack’s childhood home. It’s not like he needs an excuse to go back; she’d always welcome him, but it’s way up north and a long ass drive to where they all grew up. 

On the morning of Jack’s birthday, before they go to Medda’s, Albert and Crutchie take him out for lunch. This gives Katherine, Davey, and Sarah the slot of time they need to sneak into Jack’s bedroom and set up phase one of the plan.

Phase two of the plan involves Phosphorus the puppy. They pick him up from Sarah and Davey’s and drive him to Medda’s. His adopted siblings, Spot and Jojo, are the ones who open the door. 

Jojo, who is 14, lets out a squeal just as blood-curdling as Jack’s when she first sees the puppy. “Is it for him?” she asks, snuggling him to her chest.

Davey smiles. “Yep, and for Kath.”

She hugs it tight. “You want a turn, Spot?”

“Nah, that’s okay--” He tries to brush her off, but she shoves the sleepy Phosphorus in his face until he relents and cradles him in his arms.

“Aww, your soft side’s showing,” Davey teases him.

“Yeah, yeah. Take the beast and get outta my face, kid,” he says, playfully pushing at Jojo before turning to Katherine. “When are Crutchie and Albie and Jack coming?”

“Within the hour,” she answers. They watch Davey, Sarah, and Jojo go charging after the puppy, shouting happily amongst themselves. She can’t help but smile. “They’re ridiculous, huh?”

“Ridiculous,” he agrees, crossing his arms over his chest. Spot, he’s got dark skin and dark eyes and too many freckles to count and even when nothing’s trying to hurt him, he’s protecting himself from imaginary blows. Katherine’s known him since high school and has given up on trying to understand him. The world hasn’t been kind to he and Jojo; that much she knows.

“You been okay?” he asks.

She follows him to the kitchen. “You know, I really have.”

“I remember what it was like, losing me and Jo’s dad,” Spot says in the voice of a war hero. “It’s some heartbreaking shit, even though I hated his guts. I feel you.”

She sighs. “Thank you. For caring.”

“I’m not the best at it, but I try.” He grabs a bottle of water and makes to leave the kitchen, but she calls after him.

“Does it ever get easier?”

He turns around and smiles, those defensive eyes of his glinting. “Yeah. It does.”

-

A few more guests arrive before Jack himself does, mostly old acquaintances of he and Medda and Spot. The house is full of chatter and food in no time. Katherine spends most of her time out back with Sarah and Jojo on the trampoline.

Then, Medda pokes her head out back. “Birthday boy’s here!” she calls.

Sarah gasps, grabs Phosphorus, and scrambles through the grass. Davey appears out of nowhere, holding a recycled moving box and allowing his sister to dunk the puppy into it. 

“We’re ready,” he shouts to Medda, and she opens the door.

Jack enters, flanked by Crutchie and Albert. The trio gets a loud cheer from everyone who’s waiting--Katherine runs forward and hugs Jack hard. “About damn time you got here! Happy birthday, you asshole.”

She feels his hand pat her back a couple times. “Thank you,” he says with a laugh.

Davey’s next in line, and even after he pulls away he remains pressed to Jack’s side, watching him accept hugs and greetings from Medda and Jojo and Spot.

Sarah drags Jack to the couch and sits him down. “We’ve got you a present that can’t really wait much longer,” she explains, kneeling on the floor in front of him and nodding to Davey. He reluctantly unglues himself from Jack.

Jack grins in anticipation. “What--”

“Close your eyes!” Jojo orders, putting her own hands over his face. “It’s gotta be a surprise.”

“Okay, okay!” He settles his hands over hers.

Katherine smiles as she watches Davey bring the box in. He places it in Jack’s lap and guides his hands to the opening. “Reach in.”

Jack hesitates. “Oh my God, I feel like it’s a snake or some shit!”

“Language,” Crutchie scolds, giggling. “And I swear it’s not a snake.”

Eyes still covered, Jack slowly reaches down. His hand touches soft fur, and his jaw drops. “No. No way. No way in hell.”

“Surprise!” Davey shouts, watching him open his eyes and see Phosphorus at the bottom of the box.

Jack clearly can’t even speak, scooping up the black puppy and hiding his face in his fur. “Oh my God, I can’t believe--” He laughs and sniffs and looks up and laughs some more, embarrassed. “Oh God, I’m crying. You guys made me fucking cry!”

Sarah, Davey, and Katherine all squeal and try to hug him; Phosphorus wags his tiny tail and starts licking the happy tears off Jack’s face.

Kath rubs his back. “Look at you, emotional with it.”

“We can really keep him?” he asks her, clearly in shock. She laughs.

“Yes. We can.”

“You can change the name if you want,” Davey says, blushing. “I know it’s a bit of a mouthful--”

“Are you kidding me? No. He’s staying… Parallelogram forever.”

Davey throws his head back and then laughs into Jack’s shoulder. “Close enough.”

They all eventually end up in the backyard, because the night’s beautiful. Crutchie, Katherine, and Jojo beg Albert and Sarah to bounce them up and down on the trampoline, and when they get bored of that, they lay in the grass and look for ladybugs. Crutchie finds one first, holding it up to the others on a tattooed arm. She blows on it and they watch it take flight.

Spot and Jack sit in the grass in front of them, both drinking beer. They’re talking softly, in different languages--Spot rambles on in Spanish, and Jack interjects with low English “Yeah”s and “Me too”s.

“They do that sometimes,” Jojo says, noticing Kath listening in.

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever wish you could speak any language you wanted?” Jojo asks.

“Sometimes,” Katherine answers. She has the feeling that she could all the languages in the world and still not find answers to half her questions.

-

Sarah finds her when she’s sitting alone, because of course she does.

“I love summer,” Katherine tells her, softly. She’s still outside, even though most everyone has gone in. 

“Winter’s my favorite,” Sarah admits. “But I respect summer. You know, it suits Jack to have a summer birthday like this. He reminds me of summer.”

“What season do I remind you of?” Katherine questions.

“Spring.”

“How come?”

“Because you’re bright, but you have rainy days too. And the rainy days, they help things grow.”

Kath wants to tell her how beautiful that is. She wants to tell her that it sounds too beautiful for someone like her.

Instead, she looks at the sky. “I love stars. I love summer and I love stars.”

Sarah points out a few constellations to her. “My brother taught me those,” she says. “He knows all about the stars. How to chart them and everything.”

Katherine looks at her, and she looks back. Sarah’s eyes are like new moons, dark and promising the beginning of something. 

The moon. She’s crazy about it.

Sarah Jacobs. She’s crazy about her, too.

The problem is the fear. The strangest thing is that Katherine’s fear is reflected in those new-moon eyes of Sarah’s, the one that comes from losing a thing and being terrified to lose all else. It makes her heart beat harder. “Can I ask you…” she starts, looking at Sarah’s hand. She's never articulate while intoxicated. “Well. I just want to know you more, that's all. Can I?”

Sarah laughs. “Of course you can.”

“But we’re still being slow, right? And easy?”

“Yes. Slow and easy.”

“Like the stars,” Katherine offers.

“You should see how complicated star charting is,” Sarah says, giggling and shaking her head. “It’s anything but. Stars are easy until you try to understand them.”

Katherine can’t help smirking. Her wry smile, that’s what Medda calls it. “Like me.”

“Yes,” Sarah agrees. “But you know what’s nice? There are billions of stars to chart. There’s only one of you.”

“Meaning?”

Sarah gazes back up at the sky. “Meaning I’ll figure you out someday.”

-

And now comes the surprise they planned earlier in the day, the one they set up when Albert and Crutchie took Jack out. 

Kath leads Jack into the dark house, ready to record his reaction to his bedroom as promised. Phosphorus is with them; Jack hasn’t let him leave for the entire night. He sniffs around their house but sticks on Jack’s heels.

“Another thing?” he asks when he sees her phone.

She smiles tiredly. “You know it. You’ll like it, I swear.”

He sighs, swaying on his feet in front of his closed door. “I swear, if you filled my bed with tampons--”

“No! I never do the same thing twice.”

“Or rubber reptiles--”

“Aw, that was a fun year.”

So he opens it, and he switches on the light. His jaw drops at the sight that greets him.

Phosphorus runs into the room and jumps onto the bed, which is filled to the brim with flowers. Jack’s hands are over his mouth, and he’s laughing and looking as if he might start off with those happy tears again. “How did you guys even--”

“Your kinda boyfriend works at a flower shop, duh!”

He takes a running leap into the petals, giggling his head off. “You’re all insane. I love it. I love this. I love all of you.” Phosphorus crawls onto his chest and his laughter deepens. “And I love my puppy.”

Katherine’s cheeks hurt from smiling. She joins him in the sea of wilty rainbow, yawning. In the morning they’ll want to die cleaning this up, but now is now and she’s sinking into her best friend’s mattress and they’re both tipsy and she’s in love with a street magician and their new dog is crawling all over them. 

“Sleeping here tonight?” Jack asks.

She just groans softly in affirmation. It won’t be long before they’ve passed out, so she reaches for him after he’s switched off the light and pulled back the covers. “Did you have a good birthday?”

When she hears his voice, she knows just what Sarah means--he sounds like summer. “The best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaas always leave me a comment if u like and come visit me on tumblr @livingchancy !!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! it's been a hot minute since i've updated this & i apologize--it was actually my bday this weekend, go me, so i've been busy but i'm baaaaack. here's a kind of short but fluffy chapter! be prepared for fish puns and jack being oblivious

Katherine meets Sarah at she and Davey’s condo per her request.

It’s a cloudy morning. That’s not an uncommon thing, though; lots of times the days around here start out overcast and end up bright. Sarah slips through the tiniest crack possible in the door to keep any of the many dogs from following her outside, offering a hug that catches Kath off guard. She smells like the perfume Katherine remembers her mother using.

“Salutations,” Katherine says.

Sarah smiles. Kath likes the way she smiles, slowly, as if she knows something the rest of the world doesn’t. “Salutations,” she repeats. “There’s some SAT vocabulary.”

“It is not SAT! It’s in Charlotte’s Web.”

The memory that suddenly crops up is simple but sad. When she was little, her mother read Charlotte’s Web out loud to her for a school project. They kept a reading log. Katherine cried at the ending; she remembers that she asked her mother why anybody had to die. Death has never been her friend. It disappoints, every time.

She and her mother, they’re still in touch, but they haven’t ever seen eye-to-eye on most issues--and the death of Kath’s father only estranged them more, like he was the only current between them.

Sarah’s wearing blue overalls that are taped on one clasp. She misinterprets Katherine’s spacing out as staring and flushes. “They’re broken. We’re relying on duct tape and faith here.”

“I love them,” Katherine insists. “Where we going?”

Sarah smiles. “Surprise or no surprise?”

“I don’t like surprises. Tell.”

“That’s perfect, because I’m impatient as shit and cannot keep things secret long enough for surprises to work out. I think we should get married right now.” Sarah pauses. “Well, here’s a story. The other day I did a magic show at this kid’s birthday party, and the mom didn’t have much money. I told her it was okay, but she felt really bad and so…”

Sarah reaches into her black JanSport backpack to pull out two little ticket-looking things. “So she gave me a couple of free passes to this aquarium she works at.”

Kath giggles. “Sweet.”

“You ever been to an aquarium?”

“Yeah, once when I was in third grade. It was with my girl scout troop.”

Sarah raises an eyebrow. “Did you quit girl scouts?”

“Oh hell yes I did.”

“That’s such a lesbian thing,” Sarah says. “I quit too. And my brother quit boy scouts.”

“So gays have commitment issues?”

“Hard to tell. We might be onto something, but we’ll need a bigger sample size.”

They take the bus, because Kath and Jack don’t have a car and Davey does but he’s using it today. Katherine likes the bus; she doesn’t honestly know why, because it’s in all ways unappealing (as are the people who regular it) but she has a hunch it’s her love for people-watching.

Sarah, too, looks around with interested eyes. Katherine smiles. “Whenever me and Crutchie ride the bus we make up stories about everyone around us,” she says.

“Tell me a couple,” Sarah insists.

Kath raises an eyebrow, pointing subtly at a woman in a strange veiled hat holding a large bag. “Her, she’s going to a fashion show. The theme is death. Hence the black veil. And the body-looking bag.”

Sarah throws her head back and laughs. She glances over to a guy wearing a poncho even though it’s not raining, fiddling with a silver bracelet around his wrist. “And him?”

“He’s part-robot, and wears the poncho to hide it. That silver bracelet is how he communicates with his headquarters. And the poncho is how fellow part-robot people recognize each other.”

“Do you think people make up stories about us?”

Katherine’s not sure if she likes that thought or not. “They sure were when we came out of that Starbucks bathroom.”

-

So, the experience of an aquarium is different as an adult.

Not only does everything seem smaller, she’s also got a girl next to her who she is very into. The fish themselves don’t interest her much at all, but watching Sarah read all the descriptions and point them out and glow with smiles under the dim blue lighting is worth it.

The stingrays are her favorite part, and getting to pet them. Sarah’s too scared, flailing the moment one of the rays gets close, but Kath leaves a fearless hand in the pool and waits until she feels movement beneath it. 

As they walk through a tunnel, she catches Sarah watching the many mothers with small kids with strangely intent eyes. To bring the attention back, she says, “Hey, Sarah. Why don’t oysters give to charity?”

Sarah quirks an eyebrow. “I dunno, why?”

“Because they’re shellfish.”

Sarah hides her smile behind a hand. “You’re just as bad as my brother.”

“Hey, if you know any better fish jokes, let minnow.”

“Stop!”

“I’m herring how impressed you are.”

“Christ--”

“Do you need to mullet over?”

Sarah shoves her, laughing. They’re both laughing so hard, Katherine’s not expecting Sarah to look up at her with oddly serious eyes as soon as it’s died away. “I heard that…” she hesitates. “I heard that you lost your dad.”

“Yeah,” Katherine says. That’s such a strange choice of words, she thinks. It makes it sound like she misplaced him. She knows exactly where he is. 

“I’m sorry. That’s a raw deal.”

“Not your fault,” Katherine replies. “It’s just been… well, I won’t lie, it’s been really fucking hard. I guess the fact that we didn’t get along makes it even harder.”

She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder, and finally has to look away from the small orange fish she’s been staring at. “It doesn’t have to be my fault for me to be sorry,” Sarah says. “And I… I only brought it up because I want to be mindful. I understand you want to take things slow. I do, too.”

Suddenly the fish make Katherine want to cry, as does Sarah’s gentle touch. Imagine swimming in circles forever and not knowing why you were doing it. Imagine if that was easier than being human--she doesn’t know. A fish doesn’t know it’s a fish. Is that a good thing or not?

“I’m trying to deal,” Kath sighs. “And everyone’s been good to me.”

Sarah smiles, seeming to sense her desire for a change in subject. God, Katherine loves her. “Wanna go see the penguins?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

-

She goes to the tattoo parlor the next day, because it’s Sunday and she knows it won’t be busy and Crutchie’s on duty. He sees her coming and meets her at the door, hurrying closer with energy pouring from him. Kath can’t help rolling her eyes at him through the glass--it’s something new every day.

He reaches up on his toes to hold the bell while opening the door for her and puts a finger to his lips once she’s inside. 

She obeys, staying silent, but widens her eyes in a silent question of _what the fuck is up with you._

Crutchie smiles. “Do you have your phone?” he whispers.

Regardless of her confusion, she fishes it out of her bag and hands it to him. He pumps a triumphant fist in the air and murmurs, “Come here. There’s something you should see and my phone’s dead.”

She follows him past the sectioned-off leather chairs, still staying silent and now almost nervous. Knowing him, she wouldn’t put it past him to have found a dragon egg or something.

But what Crutchie shows her is not a thing of fantasy or the supernatural--it’s Jack and Davey, asleep together in one of the large client chairs. 

Jack’s underneath him and Davey’s almost on his lap but falling to the side in his sleep, head cradled on his shoulder. They’re clinging to each other, too, Davey’s arms wrapped around Jack like he’s a teddy bear. Jack’s head rests on top of Davey’s; each breath of his ruffles up dark curls ever so slightly.

Crutchie snaps as many pictures as he can with Katherine’s phone, then hands it back to her. Albert is there, too, taking his own photos. “Complete dorks,” he comments in a low voice, shaking his head. “Look at them.”

Katherine can’t help but notice the contrast between Jack and Davey’s arms, since they’re overlapping; the pattern of tattoos Jack sports beside Davey’s blank skin is funny to look at.

“Punk and pastel gay disaster,” she mutters. 

Jack’s eyelashes flutter a little bit. He opens his eyes blearily, seems to see nothing, and lets them fall shut again--then, they fly back open when he hears the laughter from all sides. “What the fuck--” he starts, sitting up straighter, which makes Davey whine but somehow doesn’t wake him up. Everyone around him bursts into giggles.

“Good morning,” Katherine says.

“Get married already.” Crutchie ruffles Jack’s hair.

Jack, still bleary-eyed, flails his hands behind his head to push him off. “You’re all horrible people,” he groans.

Finally Davey wakes up. In sleepy panic, he takes in the small crowd around them with raised phones. “Wh--”

“They say we should get married,” Jack tells him, rubbing his eyes. 

Davey leaps out of Jack’s lap like he’s been burned and points at Crutchie, scandalized. “I saw that. I saw you take a picture!”

In some weird almost-sort-of-boyfriend telepathy, Davey charges after Kath and Jack leaps onto Albert’s back, both of them grappling for the phones to delete the pictures. Albert dumps Jack onto the floor and sprints for the front desk--Katherine tosses Crutchie her phone, shrieking. Davey lets his arms fall and pouts. Clearly he knows if he attempts to fight Crutchie he will lose. “You guys are mean.”

“You’ll thank us when they’re in a powerpoint at your wedding someday.”

Davey blushes.

Albert has thrown himself on the floor and is curled in a fetal position around his phone while Jack yanks on him. Davey heads over and picks up his raging tattoo-covered almost-boyfriend. “It’s a lost battle, Jackie. They got their pictures.”

“This isn’t over,” Jack threatens Albert.

“Come on, the pictures are cute,” Crutchie croons.

“I look like a mongoose when I sleep,” Davey responds. “No thanks.”

Crutchie shakes his head, watching Jack sit down again and accept Davey back into his lap.

“I don’t know what a mongoose is but I like how you sleep,” Jack says.

Crutchie looks at Kath and pretends to vomit. She reciprocates.

Davey jolts, then pulls his buzzing phone out of his back pocket. He sighs. “I gotta run. Apparently I’m needed at the flower shop.”

Jack pouts. “Nooo. Don’t go.”

“I’ll come back. I always do.” Davey untangles himself from Jack, and after a moment of thought, plants a quick kiss on his cheek. “See you all later.”

He hurries out the door. Jack is left to touch his own cheek with wide eyes, looking legitimately ready to faint.

“You alive in there?” Katherine giggles, leaning over him.

He glances up at her. “Well, David Jacobs just reminded me I am.”

-

“Can we agree that this is getting ridiculous?” Katherine asks Jack, during a commercial break of Beat Bobby Flay.

Jack looks at her from his corner of the couch, feigning innocence. “What is?”

“You and Davey!”

“Me and Davey?”

“It was ridiculous a year ago. Now it’s _obscene._ ” She turns to face him. “Jack Kelly, talk to me. What’s the real reason you haven’t gone after him?”

It isn’t like he’s afraid of love itself; during this whole ordeal he’s had a handful of one-night situations. Somehow, though, yesterday was the first time Davey’s even kissed his cheek. Jack’s just like her--or like she used to be--in that he rushes into everything. Hesitancy isn’t like him.

Jack shakes his head. “I can’t love him the way he deserves.”

She wants to laugh. “Are you serious? No one loves him more than you do.”

“But Kath, I’m not good at all the mushy shit.” He leans his head in his hand. “All I know how to do are flings. I’m afraid if I take things a step further with Davey I’m not gonna know how to do anything except leave him. I know it sounds stupid but...when I get in my head about someone I love that much I can’t get out.”

Somehow, she understands. “If you care about him as much as it seems like you do, you’ll know what to do.”

He heaves a sigh. “I… alright, more stupid worries, okay? I just feel like he deserves better than me. I mean, he’s gettin’ an education and he has a stable family and I’m just some ragtag tattoo artist who can barely afford half of the rent on a two-bedroom condo.”

“He doesn’t care about that.”

“I know. But I do.”

She thinks about it. “Can we make a deal?”

He tilts his head, grinning. “Depends.”

“If you kiss Davey within the next week, I’ll do anything you want. Within reason.” That’s a terrible idea. She should take it back. She doesn’t.

Sure enough, he gets a wicked smile on his face. “Anything, huh?”

“Sure. Anything. But you can’t wuss out.”

“Alright,” he decides after a horrible moment of debate. “I’ll kiss Davey if you kiss Sarah.”

Katherine turns bright red. “Not fair!”

“You said anything!”

On one hand, she wants Jack and Davey to get their shit together more than anything. The problem: she’s scared out of her mind at the idea of kissing Sarah. She doesn’t even really know what they are. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to be something, it’s that she’s not sure it would be best for them so early on. Is it strange if it scares her out of her mind but she also wants to do it more than anything in the world?

Yeah, she has some serious issues.

“Pinky swear?” she asks, at last.

He links his little finger with hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, say hi on tumblr @livingchancy. also, hey, i finally made an official post for this! rb it here if you're enjoying, it helps me out: https://livingchancy.tumblr.com/post/173251625987/sleight-of-hand-newsies-for-katherine-writing  
> and leave a comment if you wish. goodnight newsies world :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY. this is rather short and is pretty much the jack and davey interlude before we have a bit of Emotional Turbulence up ahead. sorry for such sparse updates, life is busy but heres this one<3!

The one thing Katherine’s able to force Jack into as far as their deal is this: he’s going first.

If she has to kiss Sarah and he has to kiss Davey, she’s making him kiss Davey first. “Because we both know you’ll be the one who will try to back out,” she says. He can’t exactly argue--he _is_ famous for making deals and then flaking once he’s gotten his side--but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t whine about it.

“Kath, I’m _scared_ ,” he wails, draping himself over the couch. It’s been a week since they made their deal and she knows what he’s talking about.

“We been knew,” she responds. “For a year. Are you seriously chickening out?”

“Awfully bold of you to assume chickens are always afraid.”

She crosses her arms. “You’re not derailing this conversation.”

“I’ve had some jarring run-ins with chickens,” Jack insists.

“I think that might have more to do with how unintimidating you are rather than the confidence of the chickens, but we both digress. You gotta kiss him, Jack. Have you even tried?”

He sits up, watching her fold laundry. This is a system that works, because he’s too lazy to fold it and she enjoys stealing his shirts to sleep in and then watching him wonder why his shirts are disappearing. “Twice. I’ve tried twice and both times I just couldn’t. We were at the flower shop on Monday, just talking, and I kept hyping myself up but he just looked so pretty and so unexpecting, I swear I couldn’t. And I tried again when he came to see Phosphorus yesterday but then Phosphorus got under my legs and I tripped and hit my head on the wall he was standing by.”

“Honey,” Katherine says, sympathetic.

“It’s gonna change everything, Kath.”

“Not really,” she laughs, sitting by him on the couch. “You already sit in each others’ laps and spend all your free time together. You’ll just get to kiss now. You’re overthinking this.”

“I’m gonna do it today,” Jack says. “If I don’t do it today then you get to choose my next tattoo.”

“Your next tattoo would be either a penis or his name in massive letters, so you better kiss that boy.”

He nods, rolls off the couch, and brushes himself off. “I’m wearing my good jeans today. I mean business.”

“Oh, the ones with ten paint stains instead of seventeen?”

“Those are the ones.” He takes a deep breath. “How’s my hair?”

She smiles at him. “Hasn’t changed since high school. Where are you guys going?”

“Nowhere. I figure it’ll be easier for me if I just show up to the flower shop. If I take him somewhere it’s gonna feel like an occasion and then I’m gonna sike myself out. I’ve been doing this liking David Jacobs thing for years. I know my limits by now. Right? Why am I shaking?” He shakes out his nervous energy one limb at a time. “God, please tell me I can do this. I haven’t eaten yet today, so my breath should be fine…”

“Jack,” Katherine giggles. “Get outta here.”

He scoops up their puppy. “Wish me luck, Phossy,” he says, and Phosphorus licks his cheek.

-

The flower shop is almost a long enough walk for Jack to freak himself out so much he turns around and goes back home.

Almost. But not quite.

He reaches the entrance and rubs his hands on his thighs nervously. Nothing new, he tries to tell himself. Nothing is different. We’re just hanging out. We’ve been doing this for years.

His brain isn’t falling for it. He shakes out his limbs and hands again, an old trick Medda taught him for when he feels too jittery inside. He faces his own reflection in the window, and then he goes through the door.

Davey’s leaning on the counter, talking to a couple. He raises his eyebrows at Jack when he comes in, so quickly anybody but Jack wouldn’t notice. He smiles and pretends to be examining some carnations until the customers leave. Listening to Davey’s voice and touching the soft pink petals give him enough time to breathe easy again. This is the one time he’s grateful for the existence of straight people.

When they’re gone, he hurries right up to the counter. “Hola,” he says, hopping up to sit on it and straightening Davey’s nametag on his apron.

Davey laughs. “Hey. Good jeans?”

“Yep.” Does it mean they spend too much time together if Davey can identify his different pairs of jeans? Or maybe it has to do with the fact that Jack owns about three articles of clothing and clings to them viciously for years. It drives Katherine insane. She’s tried to replace his shirts and jeans more than once.

(“They’re plain black shirts, Jack. Why can’t you let go?”

“Because I love my black shirts!”

“They have holes in them!”

“That’s why I love them!”)

Well. He’s sentimental. Die mad about it.

Davey looks up at him. “You look nervous. Wanna give me some sharpie tattoos?”

Yeah. He can do that.

“You would look really good with actual tattoos,” Jack says, like he always does. Davey hops up onto the counter too and offers his forearm arm, watching Jack start to draw a tiny solar system on it. 

Davey just smiles. “Too bad for my low pain tolerance. And anxiety about permanently putting something on my body.”

“Sharpies will have to do until I can corrupt you. Which planet comes first after the sun?”

“Mercury,” Davey responds. He loves space probably more than life itself. Sometimes Jack looks at him and thinks maybe Davey wasn’t made to live on earth, always tethered by stupid things like gravity. God, he knows how gay it sounds, but he swears David Jacobs is always halfway out of the world everyone else is in. It’s refreshing for someone like Jack, who is almost further in the world than everyone else.

Davey takes his arm back. “You forgot pluto,” he notes.

Jack frowns. “Pluto’s not a planet, is it?”

“No, but I love it. Pluto is the smallest with the biggest heart. I wanna kiss it on the face.”

Hearing him say the word “kiss” makes Jack freeze for a second. He’s settling into their usual routine, he realizes, and at this rate he’s never going to be able to do what he planned. 

Davey’s looking at him quietly, eyes dark and perceptive. “Hey,” he says suddenly. “You have something on your shirt.”

Jack frowns and looks down. He better fucking not, he spent ages confirming this was a clean shirt, but wait. He realizes the trick seconds too late and gets a flick on the nose. His head snaps back up, and he’s about to whine or laugh or flip him off, but the moment he’s sitting straight again, Davey leans in and kisses him.

He didn’t think it was actually possible to feel the blood rush into your face, but he swears he does. It’s not intense or anything, just a lingering peck, and they kind of sit there staring each other down in shock.

Then, Davey smiles. “Got it,” he says, in this little nervous voice.

“You got me,” Jack breathes. Davey laughs, covering his mouth with one hand like he always does. “Can I do it again?”

“Hmm…” Davey pretends to think about it. “I guess.”

“You suck,” Jack says.

“You wish,” Davey counters, pulling Jack back in and giggling against his lips. 

-

Jack shows up at their condo at the end of Davey’s shift. He tosses open the door and grins at Katherine, who’s reading on the couch. “Look, he followed me home,” he says. pointing to Davey. “Can we keep him, can we keep him?”

Katherine tilts her head. “Anything you’d like to share?”

“Watch this,” Jack says, and he kisses Davey quickly on the mouth. They turn to her, expectant and grinning as a hand flies up to her face.

“No way! I gotta call Crutchie.” She stands up from the table.

“No, no, wait. We wanna surprise them at the parlor,” Jack says.

She looks at them, unable to wipe the shocked smile off her face. All these years of pining, and it’s finally turned into something. It’s the end of an era. They grow up so fast, she thinks. “How did it happen?”

“Well, Jack told me to tell you that he was the one who initiated,” Davey says, and Jack goes red. “But the reality is I did that shirt trick that he always falls for and--”

“And did it,” Katherine finishes the story. “David Jacobs, you dog.”

“Speaking of,” Jack says, looking down. Phosphorus has picked up on the excitement too, jumping on Jack and Davey’s legs and wagging his tail madly. Jack scoops him up and hugs him to his chest. “It was all you,” he tells the puppy, seriously. “That luck you gave me before you left? I owe you my life.”

Davey watches him adoringly.

“I can already tell you two are going to make everyone around you sick,” Katherine says.

“Proudly.” Jack loops an arm around Davey and gives him a few obnoxiously wet kisses on his face, then turns to Kath as he wipes them away with a breathy chuckle. “So what’s the deal on your end of the equation, hmm?”

“I guess I have to kiss her now, don’t I?”

“My sister?” Davey asks, kneeling on the floor to pet Phosphorus.

“Yep.”

Suddenly his eyes are troubled. “Just be careful with it.”

Worried by his response, she leans against the couch. “I will. Unless you really think I shouldn’t? I know we’re both going through stuff…”

Phosphorus scratches the door. Jack, sensing this is a private conversation, leashes him up and takes him out.

“No, I didn’t say you shouldn’t,” Davey replies, messing with the rolled-up sleeve of his black button-up. “I’m sure you would know better than me how ready you guys are to take things. Just a warning, that’s all. She’s still hurting, and I know you are too.”

She bites her lip. “Between you and me… what happened? I’ve only heard bits and pieces, like something really hurt her back home--enough to send her out here.”

Davey sighs. “Look, Kath… I trust you. Of course you know that. But it’s Sarah’s thing to say, you know? She’ll tell you as much as she wants to tell you. And I wanna let her come across the way she’s been cultivating with you, if that makes any sense. It’s not any of my business.”

“I get it.” And she does. She wouldn’t want somebody else to go around telling people her father is dead. A thing like that is easier to bear when you can control where the words go.

She makes a mental note to talk to Sarah about it. She’ll have her over for a movie night or something, and they’ll talk. She won’t pull any surprises; it’s usually safest to assume that people don’t like them. Jack reenters with Phosphorus. “Everything alright?” he asks.

“I might have to postpone our deal,” she says to him.

His eyes soften. “Okay,” is all he says. “I got plenty out of it.”

Davey touches her arm. “Thank you,” he says. “For being careful with my little sister. Means I have to worry about her way less.”

“Of course,” Katherine replies, her mind already running its own course. “I’m crazy about her.”

Davey glances to Jack. “Ready to go stun the hell out of Crutchie?”

“You bet,” Jack says. He links arms with Davey, then holds out his free hand for Katherine. She takes it.

“Magicians, man,” she says.

“Florists, man,” Jack says.

“Tattoo artists, man,” Davey says.

They all sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall know the drill by now, my tumblr is livingchancy so come say hello and maybe rb the post for this story if you like it?? and leave comments if you like, they make my days brighter :)))


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI. IT'S BEEN A WHILE. I AM SORRY.  
> here's the scoop: this story's gonna end w 12 chapters--i've got the rest of them planned, which explains the slight delay, but they'll come pretty fast after this! just be on the lookout ;))  
> this one's a little bit of a filler but it starts off the angst...and we may just learn about sarah's mysterious past very soon. enjoy!

Jack and Davey are as excited as only gays can be when it comes to surprising Crutchie with their newfound courage. Katherine tags along with them to the tattoo parlor, ready to film the entire thing, and Sarah meets them there too. Crutchie’s just sending somebody with a finished tattoo off when they come in.

“Oh, boy,” he says. “The whole gang. Is there bad news of some kind?”

“Quite the opposite,” Sarah says. “Good news. Guess.”

She can’t believe he doesn’t get it immediately, with how jittery and excited Jack and Davey are. “Dave won the lottery,” Crutchie says.

Davey frowns. “Christ, I wish. Don’t you think I’d be yelling if I won the lottery?”

Crutchie shrugs, grinning. “You got a good poker face.”

That’s true. It’s an unexpected thing, but Davey’s one of the best liars Katherine has ever met. Jack cannot lie for shit--he blushes and fidgets and can’t make eye contact. Katherine’s the same way; in theory, she can lie, but the guilt gives her away. David Jacobs, though, he has nerves of steel when duty calls.

“We sorta won the lottery,” Jack offers.

Crutchie raises an eyebrow. “Can y’all cut to the chase then?”

Davey turns to Jack and smiles, and Jack smiles back, and they lean in and kiss with grins so wide it almost doesn’t look like a kiss at all. Crutchie’s jaw drops. He clutches his heart and falls back against the counter, just staring at them for a long, long moment while all four of them shriek with giggles.

“Finally?” he asks, when he can speak.

Sarah and Kath just nod.

Crutchie hurries to Jack and hugs him tight, then Davey. “You--God. You’re so precious and exasperating. I’m so happy for you. For real. So you’re dating now?”

“I hope so,” Jack says, looking at Davey. “If we’re not, I have the wrong ass impression.”

Davey shoves him gently in the chest, and in the same movement grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. Sarah looks at Katherine and pretends to gag. Yeah, she’s right. It might have only been two days but Jack and Davey are already the most obnoxious couple ever. They’re always on top of each other, always in their own little world, always kissing and giggling and even doing that disgustingly sappy rubbing-their-noses-together thing. On one hand, they have a right after so much pining, but watching them gives Katherine a toothache.

“The happiness lasts for a couple seconds before you realize how gross they are,” Katherine stage-whispers to Crutchie.

He laughs. “I’ll take gross over watching them dance around each other. That shit was torture.”

“Alright, stop groping my brother,” Sarah teases, sticking an arm between them and nudging Jack backwards.

Jack goes willingly but smirks at Davey, who is now two whole feet away. “That was not groping,” he says. “You want groping, I’ll show you groping.”

“Oh, I’m getting a text,” Katherine says, pretending to check her phone. “It says Jack Kelly should shut the hell up.”

Davey grins at Sarah. “You gonna be protective of me, Essie?” he asks.

“Hell yeah! Listen, punk, if you break Dave’s heart I’ll send Spot screenshots of every time you’ve made fun of his snapbacks.”

Jack goes pale. “Davey’s in good hands.”

“Thought so.”

He scoots back over to his boyfriend and hugs him tight. “Davey, am I a punk?” he asks.

“Yeah. But it’s hot.” Davey touches his nose to Jack’s.

“Okay, yeah, ew,” Crutchie finally says.

-

Katherine’s sitting with Phosphorus after therapy the next day, looking out the front window. Jack comes in through the front door and she doesn’t look up, too lost in thought.

When he doesn’t move, she turns her head to find him staring. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she jabs halfheartedly. “What’s with the gawking?”

“I dunno. Sometimes I just get caught up in how glad I am to have you around.”

“Someone’s sappy today.” She raises her eyebrows, watching Phosphorus wake at the sound of his voice and run to him, sliding across the floor in his excitement. Jack scoops him up and carries him back over to Kath, settling on the couch beside her.

“Down day?” he asks.

She rakes a hand through her hair and tries to smile at him. “Stuck in my head day.”

He cocks his head. “Anything I can do?”

“No, not really.”

“I’ll support you quietly then.”

She shakes her head, almost as if to dispel the tears she feels coming on. “I just hate how I can’t get through even one stupid day without thinking of him. Everything reminds me of him. On the way home I saw a kid with a balloon and I remembered a balloon he got me at this carnival once. Shit, I don’t know. I don’t want my life to keep returning to him.”

Jack settles an arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” he soothes. “It won’t always. This is how you adjust. I swear, someday you’ll stop thinking of him so much.”

“I don’t want to wait until then.”

He just sighs softly, patting her arm and waiting until she’s calmer to speak again.

“You went to therapy, didn’t ya?”

“Yes. That’s kinda what put me in a rut. I mean, it’s not really… destructive or anything. I’m just sort of thinking about everything. Sometimes that’s alright. Jack fucking Kelly, is that a hickey on your neck?”

His eyes widen. “Shit,” he says, hitching his shirt collar back up to cover the mark as she sits up and laughs in disbelief.

“Had some fun, did you?”

He falls across her lap and pulls a throw pillow over his face. “I thought for sure it was low enough--”

“So, did you...?”

“No. We made out in the back room of the tattoo parlor until Crutchie found us and kicked us out.”

Kath throws her head back and laughs. God, she can just imagine that.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Jack groans.

“That’s my line.”

“So what’s the deal with Sarah?” Jack questions, rolling over on his back to look up at her. “Are you gonna kiss her any time soon?”

“I don’t know. Davey doesn’t seem to think I should rush her. I’m going to talk to her about it soon. Neither of us are crazy about surprises. Better safe than sorry.” She looks down at him. “Do you ever miss the me that loved surprises?”

Jack’s face is suddenly so serious she can hardly look him in the eyes. “Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, for the rest of your goddamn life I will love you any way you are.”

She believes him.

It’s her that misses who she used to be, not anyone else.

-

She’s on a walk with Phosphorus when Sarah calls her. All of her friends usually text, so it’s an adjustment to expect actual phone calls from anybody. She’s asked her about it, and Sarah had just shrugged. “It feels more personal,” she’d said. “Also I’m a slow typer. And I like hearing your voice.”

And yes, Katherine had almost fainted when she said that.

“Hey,” Sarah says.

“Salutations,” Katherine replies, pausing by a bench to set down her bag and pull her hair back into a low ponytail. It’s windy as hell.

Over the phone, Sarah giggles. “You and your big words.”

“They’re my favorite things.” (Kath honest-to-God has a game of learning a new word every day. Jack thinks it’s the nerdiest thing ever. It probably kind of is.) “What’s up?”

“Well, my brother’s having Jack over to the condo tonight,” Sarah says. “He says it’s a movie night, and that is code for they’re going to have sex, so is your door open for me?”

Katherine blinks, grinning like the biggest idiot on the planet. “Of course,” she says. She hears Sarah sigh in relief. “We can have our own movie night. I don’t think we have much food or anything, but we have alcohol, so.” She laughs.

“Thank you so much. I know it’s kinda sudden.”

“I don’t blame you. You may have to reciprocate in the future so I don’t have to hear them railing at my place.”

Christ, she loves Sarah’s laugh. It sounds like wind chimes, careful and pretty and dancing on the wind. That’s probably the gayest thought Katherine’s ever had, but at this point she cannot find it within her to be ashamed. “See you tonight, then?” she adds.

“Yep. Tonight,” Sarah agrees, and then she sings with a smile in her voice, “Tonight, tonight, there’s only you tonight...”

When Katherine hangs up, the warm July wind is still blowing her hair into her face. She doesn’t even care.

-

After discovering that a) Dead Poets Society is on Netflix and that b) Sarah has never seen it, Katherine knows she has a job to do. 

“All gays have to watch this movie at least once,” she informs her, sitting down on the couch and snuggling under their shared blanket. “It’s packed with homoerotic subtext. Although I can’t watch it with Jack, because the whole time he cries about how beautiful young Robert Sean Leonard is.”

Sarah chuckles a little. “Well, I’ve seen Swing Kids and he’s not wrong.”

They watch the movie, finishing off all the cheap wine Katherine and Jack have leftover from birthday celebrations. By the end, after Robin Williams’s monologues and scenes between Neil and Todd (which Sarah has to admit are “indeed packed with homoerotic subtext”), they’re both reasonably tipsy.

“Jack and I watched it together in an english class our junior year,” Katherine says. “Literally everybody cried at the ending.”

Sarah laughs, the kind of bubbly unabashed laugh she only lets go when there’s alcohol in her. Katherine remembers it from Jack’s party. 

They’ve switched to lay on the floor, feet up on the couch. Kath looks over at her. “You graduated spring of last year, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah sighs. Her hair’s billowed out around her head, almost like she’s a mermaid or something equally otherworldly. “Do you think about high school a lot?” she asks, randomly.

Kath’s surprised by the question. “I don’t, actually,” she says. “Like ten minutes after I graduated it all already felt like some weird dream. I didn’t really do anything crazy. I was so excited when high school ended--I was dying to get away from my parents.”

She got what she wished for, she supposes.

Sarah’s surprisingly silent on the subject. “I wish I’d enjoyed it more while it lasted.”

“Lots of things are like that, though. I wish I’d made peace with my dad before I lost him.” She pauses, squinting up at the ceiling. “It’s so weird, saying I lost him. I know where he is. He’s just dead. I hate when people say he’s lost; I’m not sure why I just did.”

“I’m really sorry he’s gone,” Sarah says, and her voice is airy with the slight buzz but so sincere.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“It doesn’t have to be for me to be sorry. I can’t imagine losing my dad.”

But that’s different. Sarah and Davey’s father is an incredible man, the kind of father who’s filled with unconditional love for his family that sometimes seems straight out of a sitcom. Katherine’s own father was--yes, was, past tense--stoic. When he entered a room, all conversation stopped. He was endlessly critical, of her desire to pursue writing and her sexuality and her refusal to bend at his will the way everybody else did.

It occurs to her the reason they may have clashed so harshly. Like forces repel. Six months ago the idea of being similar to her father in any way would’ve made her grimace; but here, on the floor with Sarah, she can see it. Stubborn as all hell, clinging tooth and nail to their every belief, lashing out at anyone who tried to change their mind, naturally taking charge of any situation.

“Huh,” Katherine says.

“What?” Sarah asks.

“I guess me and my dad may have been more similar than I thought: stubborn hotheaded assholes always in it to win it.”

Sarah finally sits up, pulling her knees to her chest off the couch. Her socks are mismatched--Star Wars and polka dots. She looks intrigued. “That doesn’t sound like you at all,” she says. “At least, not the way I see you.”

“Well, I changed,” Kath says. “After he died.”

Sarah smooths down her hair with her palm and then lets her hand linger on her shoulder as she studies Katherine. That look must run in the Jacobs family, because Davey does it too. Those new moon eyes of theirs, so perceptive and soft and impossible to read.

“I don’t know,” Katherine sighs. “Sometimes I want myself back.”

“You are yourself,” Sarah says. “Life changed you. That’s what it does. That’s the only thing it can do.”

Kath nudges Sarah’s foot with her own. “When did you get so insightful?”

“Spend a day with Davey,” Sarah mutters. They both laugh.

“No, I know,” Katherine picks up where they left off. “I guess that’s part of who I used to be. I’d rather claw life’s eyes out than let it have power over me. But the universe will do what it wants.”

“It does good things sometimes, too,” Sarah offers.

Katherine’s sat up by now too, curls ruffled. It occurs to her, very suddenly, how close she and Sarah are sitting. “Like you,” Kath says. “You were a good thing the universe did to me.”

Sarah giggles, flushing.

And maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s the gay subtext in Dead Poets Society, maybe it’s Sarah’s colorful socks, maybe it’s the wispy flyaways framing her red cheeks. Maybe it’s her warmth and her care and her deep thoughts. Whatever it is makes Katherine keep talking. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Would you mind if I kissed you right now?”

Sarah freezes, and Katherine’s heart begins to pound. Just as she’s opening her mouth to backtrack, Sarah’s eyes lift to hers. “I think… I think you can. I don’t think I would mind.”

She’s never wanted to do anything more. She wants it so much she doesn’t pay mind to the giveaway quiver outlining Sarah’s voice. “Are you sure?” she whispers, but she’s already leaning in and she feels a movement that she hopes is a nod.

Her lips are warmer than Katherine’s expecting.

She presses forward, linking them together so gently, and it feels right right right. Her stomach soars and heat runs down her spine as chills run up, and it’s better than any magic trick--until Sarah pulls back.

She pulls back, and her eyes are wet.

“Sarah?” Katherine asks.

Sarah’s touching her lips. She scrambles to stand up, and Katherine is left to watch, helpless, as she turns away. “I can’t,” she stammers. “I can’t, Kath, I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Katherine soothes, reaching out to her, but Sarah just paces in a nervous circle and repeats it.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I should--I should go.”

So she does.

And Katherine’s alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on tumblr/rb my post bc i'm needy (@livingchancy)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hola! here we are finally: it's time to figure out exactly what happened in sarah's past that made her so afraid of kath's kiss.  
> little warning for homophobia and violence--it's not very detailed at all, but be mindful.  
> the angst train is here. choo choo, enjoy

Davey’s underneath Jack on the couch when he swears he hears footsteps on the front walkway. “Hey,” he whispers, nudging his shirtless boyfriend (yeah, it still gives him butterflies to say that word) back a bit. “Did you hear something?”

“No,” Jack whines. “You’re just overworried, Dave.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is—“ Davey’s cut off by Jack pressing in to continue their makeout session. He’s happy enough to let it happen.

“Is this gonna be a thing?” Jack asks, between kisses to his neck. “You gonna correct my grammar even during sex?”

Davey tilts his head back, threading his fingers in Jack’s hair. “Who said this was sex?”

Jack leans back, face concerned until he sees the grin on Davey’s face. “Oh, I see,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Playin’ the long game, are we?”

Davey giggles, pulling him down for more kissing—which is, of course, when the front door bursts open. 

They fly apart, though Jack remains on top of him. “It’s Sarah,” Davey murmurs, watching as she locks the door behind her. “Essie?” he asks, and she turns like she’s seeing them for the first time. “Everything alright? I thought you were staying at Kath’s.”

“Yes,” she says, voice small. “I’m fine.”

She speedwalks to their bedroom without another word to them, not even a jab about their position. Davey disentangles himself from Jack, already standing. He doesn’t put up a fight about it.

“She’s definitely not okay,” Jack says.

“Thanks, Sherlock.” Davey fumbles for his shirt in the dark and ends up pulling on Jack’s. “I’m gonna—“

Jack nods—then, his eyes grow wide. “Oh, shit. Kath. Something must’ve happened. I gotta go check on her.” He stands up too, scrambling to get dressed.

Davey gives him a quick kiss. “Call me later?”

“Of course.” Jack steals one last kiss before he suddenly jerks back into Katherine mode. That happens sometimes—his eyes get this look in them that says he’d walk across about four oceans to get her out of whatever trouble she’s in. Davey has a hypothesis the universe saw that they each needed a ride-or-die-almost-sibling and pushed them together.

“I’ll see you,” he says again to Davey, and then he’s gone into the night. 

-

Sarah loves rain.

She loves the way it makes the world feel less real than it is, like something she doesn’t have to deal with, even just for the day. This makes the fact that it hardly rains in summer San Diego rather inconvenient. Sunny days get in her face and remind her of everything that hurts. And so does Katherine Pulitzer, apparently.

She’s sitting on her bed, wearing one of Davey’s shirts. It’s sprinkling outside, and the sky is dark. She pulls her knees to her chest. 

She hears a soft knock on the door, and when she doesn’t respond, the careful shadow of Davey enters.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

He kneels down by the bed. “You okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I just… Dave, don’t take it the wrong way, but I need some space right now.”

He understands. Of course he understands. He’s like that, too. They both need to understand their own thoughts before they can bear the weight of anybody else.

He clears some hair from her face, and then he leaves the room. Lightning flashes, and thunder follows on its heels, soft, like a lion’s purr. Her eyes have that dry, swollen feeling around them that comes from crying. Rubbing them doesn’t do shit, either. 

Out of nowhere she remembers how her brother used to comfort her during storms when they were young. He’d get into bed with her and pull the blankets over both their heads and show her how to measure how close the storm was--counting the seconds after a lightning strike until the thunder came.

She used to despise thunder. Now she knows it can’t hurt her.

By the time Davey moved out, she’d grown out of her initial thunderstorm fear. But she had other things to be afraid of by then. Things that are the reason Katherine’s lips made her want to run into the sea and keep running until she reached the horizon that the sun touches.

So she lays down and stares out the window. And she lets herself remember.

-

“Excuse me?”

Sarah jolted, yanking out her earbuds and spinning around in her chair to face whoever had tapped her on the shoulder.

A girl was standing there, with dark skin and smart eyes and a nervous smile. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey?” Sarah replied, frowning.

“I just really need help on this,” the strange girl admitted with a small laugh, sitting backwards in the empty desk in front of Sarah’s. She set her algebra worksheet down. It was rumpled and covered in eraser marks, work that Sarah could tell was wrong. “I just know you have a good grade in this class, and you looked a bit lonely so I thought I could get some help and keep you company.”

Yeah. Okay. This girl was pretty, and math was easy. For Sarah’s whole family, math was easy. They were crummy writers for the most part, but excellent at anything having to do with logic.

“Sure,” Sarah said, pausing her music. “What’s your name?”

The girl looked mildly offended. Her tone was joking, though.“We’ve been in this class for an entire semester and you don’t know my name?”

“Sorry. I don’t pay much attention. I couldn’t tell you the names of half the people in this class.”

That was how it’d been for the entirety of junior year. Everything was a blur. She felt strange in her own skin, and pressure to have plans for college as well as the peculiar feelings she felt for girls (and lack thereof for boys) was no help.

“It’s Rafaela,” she said, blinking at Sarah. Then she smiled. “But you can call me Ella.”

She was Disney-princess beautiful, with black hair pulled into two braids and wide shining eyes and the nicest lips. They started out on the worksheet, but eventually ended up talking for the entire period. Sarah learned about Rafaela—that her father was better at math but she’d always loved writing. “Essays,” she’d bragged, snapping her fingers. “I can write an essay in twenty minutes flat. Any length, type, or topic.” 

Sarah laughed. “Could you write one on what came first, the chicken or the egg?”

Ella cleared her throat. “It has been widely debated for generations the order in which the chicken and egg came. Strong arguments for both sides may distract from the truth that is hidden in plain sight… And then would come the thesis. I’d need some research.”

She made Sarah laugh. That was the thing about Rafaela. It wasn’t always through being funny—at some point, Sarah would just see her and smile. 

They were fast friends--fast best friends. It got to the point where a day without Rafaela was less common than a day with her. 

She’d usually come to Sarah’s house; she loved the Jacobs family. It was just Ella and her father, and he was a drunk. It wasn’t like he missed her. Davey had already moved out by the time they met, but even he knew her from when he came back up from San Diego to visit. Rafaela would sit at the kitchen table like another member of the family. 

It tugged at at Sarah’s heart, to watch Ella listen to Davey ramble about his nerdy science major exams or help Esther make dinner. It felt like it was how things were supposed to be, and it took on a form stronger than just affection for her best friend. It was something more than that, something that pulled her chest taut when she fell asleep in the same bed as Ella.

She guesses it was inevitable that they fell in love. Rafaela carried a spark inside her, one that Sarah had never seen before. Sarah’s always loved sparks, even though it seems all she ever does is smother them.

One night, in Sarah’s bedroom, she decided to tell her. They’d just had a play fight, and Sarah had pulled away. The knots in her stomach were too much. She told the truth, though, even afraid and nearly in tears.

“I like you,” she’d said.

“Well, I should hope you do,” Ella had laughed. “It’d be awkward after all this time if you didn’t.”

“Ella, that’s not what I meant.”

She was expecting shock. Fear, anger, disgust, anything.

But all Rafaela said was, “I know.”

-

Davey comes back in a while later with water. “Here,” he says. “You want a drink?”

She doesn’t make any move to turn toward him or sit up.

“Essie,” he sighs, setting it down. “I’m not going to ask you to talk. I just need to know you’re alright.”

Finally she rolls over, looking up at him. He seems surprised to see that her eyes are dry; he recovers fast, though, shoving the glass at her more insistently. With a sigh, she props herself up on an elbow and takes it. “Sorry I scared your boyfriend away.”

Davey smiles. “He’ll live. And so will I.” His voice softens. “And so will you.”

Sarah curls back up on her side. “I think that’s the problem,” she says.

He sighs. “Okay. It’s late; I’m going to bed. If you need anything, just come wake me up. I’m five feet away. You know the drill.” She doesn’t glance back up, but she hears the rustle and squeak of blankets being pulled back and weight dropping onto an old mattress across the room. Soon enough, his breathing evens out.

Sarah’s still wide awake.

-

Things would have been perfect. Rafaela and Sarah had already been glued together, but after they started dating, it was almost like they were one person. They went everywhere together, shared everything, lived life as one unit. 

Although Sarah never outright told her parents, she has a feeling they’d known all along. She knew they would have no problem--Davey had come out to them by then, and they’d taken it incredibly well. 

The issue family-wise was on Ella’s side of the equation, and it had everything to do with her father--he was one of the most homophobic people Sarah had ever laid eyes upon. It was bad enough when he was just on a nonsensical drunken tirade, but even sober he ranted about wanting to burn queers at the stake.

They wouldn’t have had to sneak around at all if it weren’t for him. But they did.

They really only dared to be affectionate in the protection of Sarah’s house. Even at school it felt dangerous, like all the eyes on them there could lead back to him. They could only kiss behind locked doors. They didn’t hold hands when walking down busy streets. Before they had, but now that there was more between them it seemed like a gesture even so innocent might somehow reveal them. 

Rafaela had a plan. In college, she said, everything would be fine. They both had good grades—it was only a matter of getting away from this shitty little town together. They’d run away and be happy.

Sarah started to get tired of hypotheticals, though. 

They had too many fights about it, too many almost-breakups. Sarah didn’t want to hide--Rafaela said she didn’t have a choice. “Do you think this is a matter of courage?” she’d snapped at Sarah one night. “I’m not afraid of people knowing I love you.”

“But you’re afraid of him knowing,” Sarah replied.

Ella’s face had changed. Sarah remembers it, even now, the way her eyes went dark. “I’m not afraid of him insulting me. Do you not get it? If he finds out he might kill me. He’s insane; he’ll go there, and we both know it. This isn’t a matter of shame, it’s life or death.”

And Sarah had known that. Of course she’d known that. But somehow hearing her say it out loud made her go weak in the knees.

_Life or death._

“I’m sorry, Ella. I know.”

Senior year started. One day, during their winter break, Rafaela brought Sarah over to her own house, unable to stop giggling in her excitement. Sarah looked at her, mystified, hands stuffed in her coat pockets. Their breath still fogged the air, even as they stood in the entryway.

It was only about the third time Sarah had ever been to Ella’s house. She remembers studying it. She remembers every detail.

Rafaela had dragged her upstairs before she even said anything. Then she turned bac to Sarah. “My dad’s not here,” she said, clasping Sarah’s cold hands in her own. “He said he’d be gone for the rest of today.”

Sarah tilted her head. “So why am I here?”

“I need to kiss you in here,” Ella replied. “I haven’t ever. We haven’t done anything at my house. I have to.”

So she did. And God, to this day Sarah can’t describe what kissing Rafaela felt like. It was as close to flying as she figured she’d ever get. There had been a couple kisses with boys, behind middle school bleachers and at homecoming freshman year, but they just left her dizzy and sweating and underwhelmed.

They’d talked about that, too. Rafaela had told her she’d never felt any kind of interest in boys. “I like them as friends,” she’d offered. “But I’ve only ever been able to really love girls. I’d never date a boy. It wouldn’t be fair to them; my heart wouldn’t be in it.”

Rafaela, though--God. She moved back and forth, knew where to put her hands, gripped her like a magnet. It felt strong and right, right, right and somewhere along the way they got onto the bed and Sarah remembers. 

If she closes her eyes, she remembers the soft drag of Ella’s fingernails down the inside of her arm, the tickle of her hair, the warmth of her breath. She can still feel it all, and it tears her apart.

Because Rafaela’s dad wasn’t gone as long as he said he would be.

Because he busted open the bedroom door. Because he was screaming and Sarah doesn’t remember the words but she remembers how horrific they were. Because when Ella told her to run, she listened to her.

She ran.

And she doesn’t know what Rafaela’s father said to her, but she stopped calling. She came to school after break with a split lip and gave excuses and blocked Sarah’s number. And Sarah can’t help thinking, can’t help wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t run that day.

But she had. 

She threw away the boots that she’d run in and trudged through snow in Converse for the rest of winter. She couldn’t stand to look at them.

The last day they talked was in February. Sarah pulled Rafaela into a janitor’s closet during their lunch period and begged. Tell me you’re alright. Tell me what he said. Tell me you still love me. Tell me we can make this work. Tell me we’re still running away together. Tell me, tell me, tell me.

“I can’t, Sarah,” Ella had whispered, her still-sore lip shaking. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Don’t say that,” Sarah whispered. She touched Ella’s cheek, fighting the tears. “Please don’t say that.”

Rafaela pulled away. “He said if he ever sees me with you again, he’ll kill me. He almost did kill me, Essie. He said…” She fell forward into Sarah’s arms then, shaking with sobs. Sarah stroked her curly hair, not knowing what else to do.

“Let me stay, Ella,” Sarah insisted softly. “We’ll be okay. Six months and then we can be out of here.”

Rafaela was shaking her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Sarah. I can’t. I’m scared.” She looked up, and suddenly her eyes were resolute. “Please. For yourself and for me. He said he’ll kill you too, if he thinks we’re still talking. He said he’d kill you, and I believe him. Don’t.”

She backed away and slammed the door shut.

Sarah did what she was asked. She didn’t keep reaching out. She fought her way through the rest of high school, determined to graduate. She got a part-time job, went to the community college nearby. 

“Why doesn’t Ella ever come by anymore?” her mother had asked once. She’d shrugged.

Everything she’d once loved had felt like it’d been tainted. When she looked at a math worksheet, she saw junior year and a best friend’s brown eyes and Rafaela at the kitchen table. She couldn’t keep her job at a bookstore, because they’d always gone there together. And the snow, Christ, the snow. She couldn’t stand it.

The one thing from that didn’t have Rafaela tattooed all over it was a magician’s hat in the corner of her closet. She knelt one day that summer after she graduated and pulled it out of the dust. 

It was an unused thirteenth birthday gift--the folded book inside the hat read BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MAGIC TRICKS.

It was a rough start, but she found she had a gift for it. She showed off to her parents during dinner, her brother when he came home to visit, friends from college. One of them told her she could probably make money off of it, so she did.

She tried not to let it hurt that she’d never get to show Ella.

But then, that was what made it so appealing. It was a new part of her, one that she’d formed independent of the scars left on her by everything that’d happened. It didn’t remind her of the past. She thought that was beautiful.

Rafaela had left home for college, unlike Sarah. That was just as well. It was hard enough without having to see her around all the time.

But one day in May, a year after Sarah had graduated, Rafaela came back to town for a visit with family.

Sarah was on the way home from a lecture when Rafaela passed her on the street, and Sarah had almost fainted. Not just because she couldn’t believe Ella was there, though that was part of it.

No, what made Sarah go weak in the knees was the boy Rafaela was holding hands with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well! that was intense to write, but sarah's backstory is REVEALED.  
> u know the drill. say hey on tumblr @livingchancy, rb my post maybe, and if you're feelin ULTRA generous, comment your thoughts!!! see ya next update <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI IT'S ME! your neighborhood lesbian to continue the angst. this is the Jack And Davey Are Angels/Kath And Sarah Are Gay Messes chapter. a teeny bit of a filler, and fair warning, i've hardly proofread it at all so it's probably a shitshow. but hey, enjoy!

Jack flies down the cracked asphalt, Davey’s shirt rippling against his chest in the summer night’s wind. The night would be beautiful if he weren’t so worried--clear sky, unabashed stars, a moon so very close to full but not quite there. It’s a blessed thing that he and Kath live in walking distance from the Jacobs’ condo, but it feels like no matter how fast he runs he won’t be able to reach her fast enough.

He skids around a corner, almost falls, grabs a graffitied street sign to steady himself.

It’s Kath. Here, two blocks down from their condo. She’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk, unmistakable curls covering her back. She isn’t moving.

“Kath?” he says.

She turns, outlined by moonlight. “Jack?” she asks. She ducks her head and wipes her eyes, voice possessing that unmistakable post-crying stutter. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you," he says.

Katherine doesn’t respond, head still low.

Without a word, he closes the distance between them and wraps her into his arms. He feels her arms squeeze him back, hard. They stay like that for a while. He lets her cry, just like he always does. He can’t help thinking it’s the only thing to do that makes any goddamn sense. “Are you okay?” he asks into her hair.

She shakes her head.

At last, he pulls back. “What happened? Why are you out here?”

She looks around, up at the stars, at the dark houses, at the cars parked in the street, like she’s seeing it all for the first time. “I thought I could find answers out here.”

“You won’t find ‘em anywhere outside your head,” Jack says.

She tries to smile at him. “You sound like your mom.” Then she sits down right there, on the edge of the curb with her feet in the road, and he follows. “We kissed,” she says. “I kissed her.”

“Oh, Kath.”

“I asked her if it was okay, and she said yes, so I did it.” Katherine presses a fist to her mouth. “I was drunk. I’m still drunk. I messed up, Jack.”

He furrows his brow. “She said it was okay but still ran out on you?”

“How do you know--” She lifts her head, then, like she’s realizing it for the first time. “How’d you even know anything happened?”

“Sarah came back to Davey’s,” Jack says. “She was upset. I figured something must’ve happened, so I came to find you. You kissed her and she ran out on you? After she said you could?”

She knows the tone his voice is taking on, the protective one. It’s one he used when kids in sixth grade kept calling her “carrots”, it’s one he’d use when facing her father about any given fight. It’s one he uses when the world has hurt her and he’s determined to step in front and bear it on her behalf.

But Sarah hasn’t earned that tone. 

“No,” she says. “No, it’s not her fault. It wasn’t okay. I could tell it wasn’t, I saw it on her face, but I did it anyway. I thought… God. I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought that I could make it okay even if she didn’t think it was. But I couldn’t. I’ll never be able to. What’s the fucking _point?”_

Suddenly she’s standing again.

Anger is easier than grief.

“Kath--” Jack starts in alarm.

“What’s the point, Jack? Why am I still here? Why am I still trying? I try and I try and I try and it doesn’t matter how determined I am to love anybody. No one will let me. No one lets me in.”

“I have,” he says, softly.

She’s not facing him, but he sees her shoulders drop. Almost in defeat. And he has the thought that the Kath he’s always known would never admit defeat. That’s what drew him to her in childhood, the knowledge that she’d hold her head high no matter the hurricane she stepped into. He thought she could protect him.

He doesn’t know when it became the other way around.

She’s changed, and he has to let her be new.

“I’m never going to be able to make anything okay,” she whispers, still turned away. “Not for me, not for anybody else.”

“That’s not true.”

“If things were ever going to be okay for me, they would be by now.”

“Okay,” Jack says, catching back up to her. “But what is okay? No, here’s what I think, alright? Look, look. I think that life is life, and life’s not okay and easy and hopeful in blocks. It’s messy and mixed up and feeling okay comes in the little stuff. It always will. But it’ll always come back.”

She takes a deep breath, and he honestly thinks she’s going to punch him but then she just glances at him with the smallest look in her eyes.

“It tears me up seeing you think the world hates ya, Kath,” Jack whispers. “It just doesn’t work like that.”

“It feels like my dad,” Katherine says. “Is that… that doesn’t even make sense. Watching her leave, it felt just like it did to get that phone call. Like I would never get her back and we’d never be able to understand each other, just like what happened with him.”

“Katherine, your dad’s gone.”

She gives him a _no shit, Sherlock_ look.

“I’m being serious, smartass! Your dad’s gone. He’s not coming back. But Sarah… Sarah’s here. She’s at Davey’s house, probably having a real similar talk with him right now. You can understand her. You have time.”

It’d be a stretch to call her eyes fierce, but they suddenly look stronger. “You’re right.”

“Do you wanna understand her, Kath?”

“More than anything.”

“Then learn from your dad. Do what you never did with him: talk to her. Go to her tomorrow.”

Kath shakes her head, reaching forward to grab his hand. He’s surprised by the action but lets her intertwine their fingers and squeeze. “I don’t deserve you, Jack Kelly.”

“Bullshit. Katherine Pulitzer, I’m going to be your best friend for the rest of your life. Just try and stop me. Shit’s gonna hurt along the way. I’m gonna help. Same thing we’ve always done.”

She gives him a smile that crumbles like a fault line. 

“I’ll make it up to you someday,” she says.

“You already have.” He drops her hand. “Now come on. Let’s go home.”

-

Davey wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of sobbing. His chest draws tight, and he scrambles to sit up, though he was expecting this or something like it. He leaps out of bed and fumbles through the dark room to Sarah’s bedside. “Sarah?” he whispers, and she doesn’t respond with words; she just reaches for him.

Seeing her like this reminds him of when they were little kids. She trusted him to keep her safe from the monsters under their bunk bed; and she trusts him still, with things that are so much bigger than he can fix. A monster is just a monster. Grief is something else.

He sits on the bed and hugs her tight.

It takes a while, but when the cries have dispersed, she pulls away. “I’m sorry,” she sniffs.

Without a word, he gets up and fetches her some toilet paper--makeshift tissues. “Don’t be,” he responds, watching her blow her nose and take control of her breathing once more.

“I’m sorry about everything,” Sarah says, eyes glassy and seeing nothing.

He kneels down in front of the bed, looking up at her. “Essie, what happened?”

He’s not afraid of pulling out the childhood nickname, because she’s ready to talk now. He can tell. Her eyes move to him, slowly, like a camera focusing. “I ran,” she says.

“You ran?” he repeats gently.

“I ran away from her--just like I ran from Ella--in the snow--” She covers her face, dissolving all over again. 

Somehow, he’s able to translate. He looks up at her, almost feeling his own body wracked with her cries. It’s always been this way, always him dying to assuage any pain she might be feeling. The older sibling curse. You start out letting them help blow out your birthday candles so they don’t feel left out, and somewhere in between you grow up.

“I’ve spent so much time wondering--what would have happened--if I hadn’t run--but I just did it--I did it again--” She takes gasping breaths between fragments of her sentence, a hand on her chest. Davey shushes her.

“Deep breaths, Essie. Deep breaths, take a second. I’m not going anywhere.”

Minutes pass. She gathers her breath. “She kissed me,” she finally says, looking at the ceiling. “And I thought I was ready. I thought I wanted it. But then it happened and I couldn’t do anything but run. It was too much, it felt like too much.” She rubs her face, hard, with a hand.

Davey decides on a different approach; maybe it’s his turn to fill the silence. “Sarah, let me tell you something. Do you know why it took me so long to kiss Jack?”

She looks up, eyes red-rimmed but still curious. She shakes her head.

“I was scared,” he says. “Scared to _death_ of what would happen afterwards. I thought that if we kissed, if we were officially together, somehow only then we’d be on track to losing what we had. Because I figured it could end in two ways and only two ways: marriage or a breakup.”

She blinks, cheeks still flushed. “How’d you get over it?”

He looks down. “The answer to that is hard. Tell me something else. Talk to me; why were you so afraid of Katherine kissing you?”

“The second we were touching, I was back in Ella’s house. I haven’t kissed anybody since I kissed her. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore, and I just remembered everything in that one second and I had to get out.”

Davey’s still on the ground in front of her. He bites his lip. “Okay, so you’re scared,” he says. “Scared of losing her, scared of things going down the same road.” He remembers very well the pain Sarah suffered through losing Rafaela, hell, the pain she’s _still_ suffering. He was the first one she confided in, the one she ran to when she had to get away. “And that’s okay. That’s okay. I understand it. You’re allowed to be scared, but it’s not fair to Katherine if you don’t remember that she’s scared, too. If she hurts you, it isn’t going to be on purpose.”

“If she hurts me,” Sarah interjects, “it doesn’t matter if it was an accident. It still hurts.”

Davey sits back, hugs his knees to his chest, and studies her. Finally he says, “You can’t live in fear, Sarah. I know because I’ve tried it. Let me… how can I make you understand this? Magic. You’re a magician.”

“Congrats on noticing.”

“Wise-ass,” he jabs, but softly. “You like magic. Are you going to stop doing it because you’re afraid of messing up a trick?”

“No.”

“Exactly! You don't think about that. You will never know anything if you don't try. Heartbreak is part of life. It's a healthy part of life. And maybe Katherine won’t break your heart. Maybe she will. Maybe you’ll break hers. Something is going to break, and it’s going to be fucking okay.”

He almost never swears.

“But what if it’s not?” she whispers.

Davey stands, sits on the bed. “Do you know what the most beautiful thing about the world is?” he asks her.

She just gazes up at him.

“It keeps moving. It's going to spin and spin and spin and it doesn't care how sad you are. And someday it's going to spin so fast that you have no choice but to get back on your feet and spin with it. Everything is going to be okay. You're afraid because nothing is permanent? That's exactly why you shouldn't be afraid.”

She doesn't speak but leans her head on his shoulder. Her breathing is calm now.

“I have to go back to her,” she says.

“Curly-haired fierce writers,” Davey says, punching her in the arm playfully. “I guess you have a type.”

She punches him back, gently. Then she sighs. “This is so hard. I wish the world was just you and me.”

He smiles into the darkness. “Then it is.”

-

The bell above the tattoo parlor’s door dings. Jack, Spot, and Crutchie look up, relieved to see a breathless Davey. “Hey,” Jack says with a grin, “that shirt looks familiar.”

Davey smiles. “Hope you don’t mind,” he says.

“You look hot,” Jack affirms, settling his hands on Davey’s hips and kissing him.

“Mmm, prove it then.”

Crutchie clears his throat, and Albert purses his lips. 

“Christ,” Spot says. “I almost wish they’d never found this out. Please. This is weird. I can’t watch my brother suck face.”

Crutchie clears his throat again. “Hello,” Crutchie says, when they’ve turned. “Hi. Serious issue please? Dave, have you talked to Sarah? Is she okay?”

Davey runs a hand through his hair. “I think so, yeah. I know you texted me, but Katherine’s okay too, yes? Sarah wants to talk to her, but if Kath…”

“No, Kath wants to talk,” Jack confirms. “She’s doing fine.”

“Wait.” Davey turns to Spot. “What are you doing here?”

“Crutchie asked me to pretend-date him for a family gathering tomorrow, but when I heard that shit hit the fan I decided to come early. Kath and me, we get each other.”

“Pretend-dating?” Albert says. “Tattoo shop and flower shop? This is straight out of some shitty fanfiction.”

They all stand for a few moments in uncomfortable silence.

“Katherine and Sarah,” Spot says at last.

So they gratefully disperse to make things right again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they gonna fix things. we hope.  
> say hi on tumblr, rb my post, yall KNOW. also leave a comment if you're feelin real generous :)) ciao


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is excellent because you can pinpoint exactly where the exhaustion kicked in and i fully gave up  
> but hey, this could also be called I Really Love Spot Conlon And Also I Am Projecting How Much I Want A Girlfriend  
> things are happy! at least for a bit. enjoy. and please don't mind the unedited writing

Spot’s the one who goes to fetch Katherine while Davey calls Sarah. They don’t actually tell either of them that the other is going to be there, because they know they’re both still scared and will inevitably psych themselves out. Sarah’s got a car, but Spot figures Katherine may not want to walk alone.

(Jack was technically supposed to get Kath, but he and Davey couldn’t bear the idea of being separated and kept kissing and tuning everyone else out until Spot just finally couldn’t take the sap and went to do it himself.)

“Have fun,” Crutchie calls, poking his head out of the tattoo parlor as Spot leaves.

“Oh, I will. You’re the one who’s stuck with Dumb and Dumber: Pda Edition.”

Crutchie laughs. “Good point. I think I’m gonna make ‘em clean the front windows.”

“Excellent.”

“Bye. Make sure you don’t say anything about the plan.” Crutchie blows a kiss, grinning widely when he gets the expected response of a disgusted face.

-

Spot straightens out his shirt nervously when he reaches the door of Jack and Katherine’s condo. He’ll admit it, he’s had a slight crush on her pretty much since they were little kids. Chaotic bisexual at its finest. It’s not the kind of crush he’d ever act on, but the my-older-brother’s-friend-is-so-pretty-damn type of crush.

Finally, after clearing his throat, he knocks.

It takes a second, but he hears the patter of socks on wood floor and then the door opens. Her eyes widen when she sees him. “Spot! What the hell are you doing here?” She lunges out to hug him as she and Jack’s little dog bounds out to jump on his legs.

He grins under all the attention. “Uh, Crutchie wanted me to pretend-date him for a family thing. I came out to see everyone a day early.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you. Always am. Jack’s not here, but do you wanna come in? Oh--do you need a place? Where are you staying?”

She’s always talked so fast. Her brain works faster than most peoples’, and Spot guesses she forgets that not everyone can jump from thought to thought the way she can. “Uh--actually, I came to get you. They’re all down at the tattoo parlor, and they wanna see you. Jack says he wants to get you out of the house.”

She looks over her shoulder and sighs; her curls fall across her back. “Fair point. I’ll admit I’ve been watching Dr Phil all day.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That’s unhealthy.”

“There’s something comforting in seeing how much worse off some people are than you. Is that morbid? That’s morbid. Well, you know what I mean. Should I bring Phosphorus?”

At first he has no clue what she means, but then she looks at the dog who’s still very excited by his presence. “Uh, sure. The more the merrier.”

So she puts on Phosphorus’s harness and leash and when she brings him out,she laughs at the look on Spot’s face. Sue him. A tiny dog harness is probably the cutest thing he’s ever seen. “I thought you had a heart of ice.”

“It’s my facade.”

“Don’t use big words correctly. It weirds me out.”

They start the walk to the tattoo parlor. “So,” Spot says. “How’s it going with you and Sarah?”

She deflates suddenly. “We had a little bit of a fight,” she admits. “I mean--it wasn’t exactly a fight. I don’t know why I said that. I mean, it’s a conflict, but it wasn’t a fight, not a verbal one.”

“Yeah, I heard what happened,” he says. “Jack’s got a big mouth, in case you forgot.”

“Yeah, suppose I did.” She meets his eye again. “The thing that makes it so hard is that it reminds me of my dad. I hate that. I don’t want Sarah to have to… I don’t know, live down how he hurt me when it has nothing to do with her. Is it always going to come back to him, when people leave?”

“Well,” Spot interjects carefully, “she isn’t gone forever.” This is so damn far out of his comfort zone. He can’t comfort people. What is he doing? Is he not forgetting what a disaster it was when he tried to soothe Jojo after her fish died?

(An apt summary of that conversation is that when she asked him if there was fish heaven, he said no, they only get flushed.)

(In his defense, he was twelve.)

“No.” She sighs again. He really can’t keep up with her. “I just need to talk to her.”

“Are you planning to?”

“Truth?” she asks.

“Hit me with it.”

“The idea of talking to her scares the hell out of me.”

Spot bites his lip. “You know, when Medda lifts her hands, I still flinch.”

Her eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. Which is fucking wild, isn’t it? She would never put hands on me. Never. She’s my mom. I know that, but I still flinch because when my dad would lift his hands, it usually wasn’t just to push hair outta my face or put away a bowl.”

“Yeah,” Katherine muses softly, almost to herself.

“I think that’s gonna stick with me. All my body’s tryna do is keep itself from being hurt. My brain knows the thing, it knows that Medda isn’t going to hit me, but it’s like it can’t communicate it in time.” He takes a breath. “I dunno. Look, I’m not good with words. I guess what I’m trying to say is that fathers, they stick with you. And I’m hypocritical for saying this, because I beat myself to hell and back over it, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Shit’s gonna make you think of him. That’s not your fault; it’s not your fault what he did, or what happened to him.”

Katherine points out, “It’s not Sarah’s fault either; I don’t want to make her pay for it.”

“And that’s hard,” Spot agrees. “It’s hard being looked at like you gotta be treated differently cuz of what someone else did. Feels like shit being a charity case. But you gotta remember that Sarah has her tragedies, too. You’re paying for what someone else did to her. It balances out.”

“You’re right. I know you are, just…” She tosses her hair over one shoulder. “How does it get easier?” she asks out of nowhere.

Spot frowns. “Huh?”

“At Jack’s party. You said it’d get easier.”

He fidgets with his hands. He would never tell this to anybody but her. “You wanna know a secret?”

“Sure.”

“I cry about my dad sometimes.”

Katherine looks near stunned. “Honestly?”

“Yeah. Honestly. Not that often, and not in front of Jo, but I do. That’s not the secret, though. The secret is that it doesn’t get easier because you stop thinking about him; it gets easier because you learn how to deal with thinking about him.”

She’s silent for a long, long time. Then smiles at him. It’s a kind of sad smile, but it’s still a smile. “When did Jack’s little brother get to be so smart?”

He grins. “Always have been. Just keep my wisdom to myself.”

They walk quietly a ways, thinking to themselves.

“So,” Katherine says, voice wry, “you and Crutchie, huh?”

Suddenly he’s very interested in the ground. “Look, it’s just a pretend thing. Just for one night.”

“You’re blushing,” she sings.

“I’m not!”

“I mean, he’s single…” She elbows him lightly. “And you’re single…”

“This is not a thing!”

“You’re both tired of Jack’s bullshit…” She grins at him. “Talk to me for real, Spot Conlon. Are you into him?”

He coughs. “Maybealittlebit.”

By now they’ve reached the corner that the tattoo parlor is on, but before she can question him further, somebody grabs her from behind. 

“Boo!”

She screams, only to see Jack, strangely wet and looking very pleased with himself. Judging by Davey’s giggling and Spot’s unimpressed expression, the same operation’s been pulled on him.

“We so got you!” Jack says, still draped over her shoulder.

“Fuck you,” Spot groans, dusting himself off where Davey got him wet.

The attackers come back around to the front of them. They’re both coated in soap--in their hair, on their clothes, and they’re each soaked to the bone, as are the bubble-streaked parlor windows and sidewalk. “What the hell are you doing?” Katherine says, running a hand through Davey’s hair to collect some of the foam.

“Crutchie asked us to clean the front windows,” Davey explains.

Jack interrupts. “No, actually, he didn’t ask. He said ‘hey idiots, stop making out and go clean the windows.’”

Spot looks them up and down. “Clearly neither of you have ever cleaned a window.”

Davey rolls his eyes. “Jack started it.”

“Um, did not.”

“You grabbed me and wouldn’t let go! I had to resort to beating you with a sponge! I almost _died!”_

“You just look really sexy when you clean windows, I can’t help it,” Jack says, pulling Davey into another embrace and squishing their cheeks together; Davey looks unimpressed with it all.

Spot pushes forward. “Okay, stop having sex,” he says, then lowers his voice. “Is Sarah here yet?”

“Crutch just called her,” Davey answers. “I checked in with him. She’ll be here soon.”

“Okay,” Katherine says loudly, startling them all. “If you’re gonna keep having your top-secret conversation, I’m gonna say hey to Crutchie.”

“I’m coming, Kath. Y’all better fix this,” Spot says, pointing at the soap-streaked window. Jack snaps a salute; Spot flips him off before following her inside.

Crutchie’s waiting there, tattooed arms flexing as he plays Bike Race on his phone with far more vigor than necessary. Katherine tries for a hug, but he shakes his head. “Please hold! I’m about to beat my time on the third Halloween stage--yes! _Fuck_ you! Yes!” For a minute, Spot’s truly concerned he’s going to hurl his phone across the room in excitement but then he gathers himself.

“Hi, Miss Pulitzer,” Crutchie says, stretching up to hug her. “Sorry. Bike Race is serious business.”

Spot holds out his arms. “No hug for me?”

“Not if you make me get up,” Crutchie responds with a laugh.

Spot’s still trying to ignore how much he loves Crutchie’s hugs when he notices the car shared by Davey and Sarah pull up outside. Of course, Doofus 1 and Doofus 2 are too busy being in love and failing at cleaning to even notice her. Spot widens his eyes at Crutchie, who says frantically, “Uh, Kath, come back here with me. I need your help with something.”

 _Real subtle,_ Spot mouths to Crutchie as he nudges her toward the back room.

 _I panicked!_ Crutchie mouths back. 

Spot turns back to the window. Sarah obviously hasn’t seen Kath; she’s talking to Jack and Davey, with her gentle, reserved air intact but a wide smile to match. The thing Spot’s noticed about Sarah is how careful she is with the space she takes up. 

Spot heads to the front window. “Sarah,” he says brightly.

“Hi, Spot,” she says. He braces himself for a hug, but she doesn’t move, just smiles at him. Suddenly he likes her a whole lot more.

He doesn’t do so well with the hugging thing. Unless it’s Crutchie.

(Yeah, yeah, shut up.)

“Wanna come inside?” he asks. “It’s hot as hell out here. And unlike certain gay hooligans, you don’t deserve to bake in the heat.”

Sarah punches Jack in the chest playfully before she follows Spot inside. “So what’d they do to get on cleaning duty?” she asks him, but he never gets a chance to answer her because the minute she’s done asking the question, she sees Katherine. 

“Kath?” she says.

“Surprise?” Crutchie asks, when Katherine turns toward him incredulously.

She gets her bearings fast, though. “Sarah,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

“Crutchie called me out,” Sarah explains, looking absolutely anywhere but into Katherine Pulitzer’s eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Spot came and got me,” Katherine says, eyes narrowing as she seems to realize they’ve been set up. Both girls turn and look at them, silently asking what, why, and how the hell. Crutchie, thank God, steps forward.

“We knew you guys were scared of talking everything out,” he says. “Maybe it’s not the best method, but we figured it’d just be fastest to push you together.”

Katherine sighs. “Men are so tiring. Can we at least have some privacy?”

Crutchie nods, sweeping a hand grandly toward the many chairs. Without a word, Sarah starts toward one of the sectioned-off areas and ducks behind. Katherine follows.

And then they’re alone together, and Katherine’s always prided herself on being a writer but words fail right now. Sarah sits in the large leather chair, hands folded in her lap. They’re silent for a while. It’s a very awkward silence.

Katherine’s the one who breaks it. “I think we should just do this.” She takes a deep breath. “I kissed you. I shouldn’t have. I was drunk, and I wasn’t thinking right, and it’s not an excuse but...it’s why it happened.” Her voice softens. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Sarah rushes out. “I shouldn’t have told you it was okay. I should have talked to you then.” She laughs a strange little laugh. “I could have spared us all this.”

“There’s no point in wishing,” Katherine sighs. “It happened.”

Sarah slides out of the chair onto the floor; Katherine gets the silent invitation and plops down beside her. They sit there for a moment, basking in their own feelings and uselessness and immense love for the girl to their left and right. Then Sarah turns her head and says, “I wanna tell you why I moved to San Diego.”

“Sarah, you don’t have to--”

“No.” Sarah takes her hand and squeezes. “I want to.”

Sarah talks. She holds Katherine’s hand and talks about junior year, about Rafaela, about the snow, about fathers and dinners and throwing away her boots and the lightning bolt that brands her throat when she thinks about Ella faking love with a boy.

“And that’s why I moved out here,” she finishes. “That’s the truth, and it’s all I have left. It’s why I was so drawn to you and it’s why I’m so scared at the same time. And I’m sorry for that. I should have told you sooner.”

Kath, who’s remained silent thus far, finally looks at her. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m glad you told me, but you don’t owe your tragedies to me.”

She sees Sarah in a new light now. A human light. Her hair falling in front of her face, the freckles on her shoulder, the hair tie around her wrist. She thinks about her hurting, about the light inside her she’s needed to share so badly since the moment she saw her doing magic on the corner. And there’s a fear inside her, too, as she reads between the lines of Sarah’s words. Maybe it’s selfish, but she can’t help asking,

“So… are you saying you still have feelings for her you need to work through?”

“No,” Sarah says. “No. That’s not why I was so scared of you kissing me, either. I have eyes for you, just you. That’s what scares me.”

Katherine smiles.

They’re quiet for a couple more minutes.

She can sense that Sarah’s okay with this ending. She doesn’t need specifics, doesn’t need labels, doesn’t need to know exactly what life intends. But Kath does. “So what are we now?” she asks. “Are you saying you need space?”

Sarah breathes out, ruffling her hair. “I’m sick of space. I don’t need any more space. I just need you.” She sits up, suddenly grinning, and says, “Close your eyes.”

Katherine does, and it wouldn’t take any kind of genius to know what’s coming but she still feels the fireworks go off in her chest when Sarah kisses her.

Neither of them run.

They pull each other closer, because they’re tired of the space that’s been between. Katherine’s thinking and thinking, her brain rushing all over the place with thoughts of how stupid they’ve been trying to keep things easy this whole time. Love’s not easy. She feels Sarah smiling against her lips and she knows it’s never going to be easy but it’s worth it anyway.

By the time they pull back, Sarah’s pretty much in Kath’s lap. She presses their foreheads together and searches those dark, dark eyes. “We should really get off the floor,” Sarah says, breathless.

“Yeah,” Katherine pants back.

They don’t. 

Sarah leans back in and manages to accidentally pull Katherine’s hair. Kath yelps, and Sarah gasps and starts stroking it soothingly as Katherine throws her head back and laughs. They’re still on the damn floor. “We’re such a mess,” she says into Sarah’s neck.

“It’s time we stopped pretending otherwise,” Sarah responds, kissing her again.

Katherine stops there, in the moment, to feel everything. Gentle hands on her back, eyelashes on her cheek, the thing she’s needed for so long finally in her lap and hers to have. “I’m very, very crazy about you, Sarah Jacobs,” she whispers.

Sarah’s eyes are searching her face. For once, Katherine’s not afraid of what she’ll find there. “Likewise.”

-

“They’ve been behind that wall for a very long time,” Spot says.

“They’re having a moment.”

“What if they’re having sex?”

“Only Jack and Davey would be stupid enough for that,” Crutchie says.

“It was one time!” Jack whines.

Spot’s sitting on the counter and swinging his legs as he talks to Crutchie, down in his chair. Jack and Davey, finished with the windows, are lounging nearby. Spot watches Davey lazily tracing the ink lines on one of Jack’s arms, and then he looks back at Crutchie and really tries to ignore how much he’d like to do that.

“They have been gone a long time,” Davey says. “Should someone check on them?”

Jack tightens his arm across Davey’s chest, holding him in place. “Don’t leave me.”

“I can,” Spot offers, rolling his eyes. He heads away to take care of it, and the second he’s gone, Jack and Davey turn to Crutchie all eyes.

“What?” Crutchie asks, feigning nonchalance. His voice squeaks. Dammit.

“Your pretend boyfriend, huh?” Jack asks.

“Don’t take the piss,” Crutchie whines, slouching in his chair and covering his red face with an arm. “It’s just for my family thing tomorrow. Then we’ll move on with our lives.”

Davey arches an eyebrow.

“Stop that!”

“So do you think he’s cute?” Jack croons.

Crutchie lifts a spiked crutch in warning. “I will punch you in the face.”

“Hey, he is my little brother, so I’ll have to be protective over him.”

“No need for protection. This is not a thing.”

“Not a thing my ass!” Davey says. “I have literally never seen you blush until now. That’s so cute. The two grumps together. Oh my God, you’re going to get married and have grumpy leather-jacket wearing children.”

Crutchie rolls his eyes, but Spot’s already returned with Sarah and Katherine. They’re holding hands; Crutchie can only assume the plan has worked. “So?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Katherine says. “We had us a talk.”

“All is well?” Jack questions hopefully.

Sarah nods, unable to contain her smile. Crutchie swears he can feel the sun rays it’s beaming out at them. 

Jack, Crutchie and Davey, of course, squeal their heads off. The lesbian love story is finally smooth sailing, according to Crutchie.

Katherine heads to Spot, who’s remained on the sidelines. “Hey,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “There’s your situation sorted.”

She smiles, then looks over her shoulder at Crutchie. “Now we gotta do something about yours, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M WRITING ABOUT SPOT/CRUTCHIE. you know why? because i fuckign CAN.  
> honestly my friend dared me to and i was skeptical but now i'm really emotionally invested. whoops.  
> hit me up on tumblr! leave some comments! im really tired so goodnight newsies world


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLA. ao3 was down today so i couldn't manage to publish this until now, whoops. i wrote this whole chapter while listening to jack johnson on repeat, so that says all you need to know: it gets sappy. be warned  
> featuring LOTS of spot and crutchie content, jack kelly being a mess, happy lesbians (i am fully projecting my need for a cute magician girlfriend onto kath), a mush cameo, and italic overkill.  
> enjoy.

Spot’s not sure what he was expecting Crutchie’s family to be like. He knows they’re not what he anticipated, but looking back he doesn’t even know what that had been. Was he expecting all of them to have tattoos and leather jackets? Was he envisioning the house to be something goth as fuck, like black with red trim? Did he think it would be completely packed with tow-headed Morris family members?

Whatever the case, the house they pull up to is not the one in his mind’s eye. It’s not small, but not big, either. The outside looks suburban enough, tan with white window frames.

Crutchie smiles at him as they head up the walkway. “Nervous?”

“Of course not,” Spot answers, lifting his chin.

“You seem a little nervous.”

“Nothing makes me nervous.”

Crutchie laughs, then grabs Spot’s hand before he rings the bell. When Spot’s head whips toward him, he tries not to turn red. “What? We have to convince them we’re dating.”

Spot swallows, squeezing at their intertwined fingers. “Yeah. Just pretend.”

“No homo.”

“Just… guys being dudes.”

They exchange a glance that Spot can’t read on either side before the door opens and a middle-aged woman greets them. “Charlie!” she says. “Any new tattoos?”

“None that you don’t know about, Mama,” he says with a grin.

Spot notices that she’s got tattoos, too. Not nearly as many as Crutchie, but definitely a few that are showing on her arms. When she sees Spot, her eyes widen. “Oh, and this must be the boyfriend!” She rushes to hug him, and he’s surprised but manages to stiffly return it. Yeah. Hugging. Not his thing. 

He smiles nervously as she pulls away and squeezes his arms. "You've heard about me, huh?"

“Oh, of course. My son’s quite hung up on you.” She scrutinizes him in a way that makes him squirm, even though her smile is pleasant and unwavering. “Well, come on in. Food’s not quite ready yet, but it’ll be on the table shortly.”

What’s making his heart pound is the thought of Crutchie being hung up on him. Spot casts another glance at him, a silent question of just how much Crutchie’s talked about him. Crutchie, misinterpreting it as anxiety, gives his fingers another squeeze of reassurance as they step inside.

And suddenly, Crutchie’s personality makes a whole lot of sense.

There are posters all over the walls, for bands like Guns n Roses, Marilyn Manson, The Doors, Metallica, Alice Cooper. 

His family members aren’t the epitome of suburbia, either--piercings, tattoos, careers in all kinds of art from painting to music. Looking around the table is like entering another world.

The dinner goes by harmlessly. Spot plays the part of the boyfriend, with a lot of help from Crutchie, and answers questions about where he goes to college and how long they’ve been dating (two months is what Crutchie told them, so Spot relays it; they’ve planned this out).

Crutchie’s explained why he needed Spot to pretend date him; his family is always pestering him about finding somebody, so he figured just to shut them up he’d bring one along. It works; everybody seems very excited to see a boy at Crutchie’s side.

Everybody’s nice. That’s almost the problem. They talk a lot.

Crutchie seems to notice Spot growing antsy, so they skip on dessert and head off alone together.

“I don’t wanna make you miss out on pie,” Spot says, when they’re in the hallway. “That shit looked heavenly.”

“We’ll sneak in and get some later,” Crutchie replies. “Anyway, I care more that you’re good. You doing okay?”

“Yeah. Your family talks a lot, that’s all. How many siblings do you have again?”

Crutchie has to take a minute to think about it, which answers the question: too many. “Um, seven.”

Spot whistles. “What in the fresh hell is that about? I can’t handle two.”

He grins, and Spot realizes they’re still holding hands. There’s no reason to now--nobody can see them. But he doesn’t let go, and neither does Crutchie. “Yeah, well, two are same parent siblings, two are step siblings, and three we fostered then adopted. My mom’s like those people who have a million dogs because every time they find a new one who needs a home they can’t resist. She’s like that, but with people.”

“I’d rather have a million dogs than a million people,” Spot says.

Crutchie nods. “Good policy.”

Spot starts surveying the pictures on the walls. He grins when he reaches a school portrait of a little kid with ruffled white-blond hair, wide round glasses, and a missing front tooth. “This you?”

Crutchie wrinkles his nose in embarrassment, but he’s grinning. “Yep. First grade. Took a bit of a turn, didn’t I?”

He looks at the picture for a few more moments before surveying the Crutchie of now--dyed black hair, famous leather jacket on, his spiked forearm crutches. “Yeah, but I like the turn.”

“My family seems to like you,” Crutchie said, voice suddenly soft and almost shy. “You done good today.”

“Yeah. I like ‘em too.”

Spot pockets his hands. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that he would really like to keep coming back to this crazy house and this wild family as a real boyfriend. He looks at the long line of school pictures again, of family vacations from years past. Like he always does at the sight of functional families, he feels a pang of jealousy. He knows how lucky he and Jojo got, ending up with Medda, but that didn’t happen until he was thirteen. By the time he was safe, he’d lost his chance at a childhood.

Crutchie seems to guess this. He leans against the wall. “Thinkin’ about your parents?”

Spot shrugs.

“I’m sorry you and your sister had it so rough when you were younger.” Crutchie lets go of his hand, but then he touches Spot’s arm and rubs lightly.

Spot and Jojo didn’t make it to Medda until after Jack had. Jack’s parents both died when he was a toddler, so he grew up in the foster system until she adopted him. Spot’s sure there were rough homes here and there, but Jack doesn’t like to talk about it.

He shakes his head. “It’s all done now. But if you don’t mind my asking… I noticed you… Well. I didn’t see any father around at the table. Is there a story there?”

Crutchie runs a hand through his dark hair. “It’s not a long one,” he says. “My mom’s had bad luck with men. Me and my two sisters, our dad was an alcoholic, and my two step-brothers had a dad who put hands on all of us. Most of it happened when I was little, so I’m not too scarred.”

“Fathers,” Spot sighs. “Why do they make shit so hard?”

“Don’t ask me.” Crutchie kisses Spot on the cheek, so casually Spot almost doesn’t freeze. “Come on, let’s go rejoin the masses.”

Spot touches his own cheek as Crutchie heads off down the hallway, stomach in knots. Suddenly it occurs to him what deep shit he’s in. He’s never loved anybody, avoided even the topic of dating all through school, because in his experience it ends in hurt. But if he’s not head over fucking heels in love with Crutchie Morris, he’s not sure _what_ he is.

-

They sleep in the same bed that night. Since it’s a long drive back his mother insists they stay the night, and they’re too tired to really argue. Crutchie falls asleep first, hair strewn across the pillows, body so close to Spot’s they may as well be touching.

Spot stares at the ceiling and he wonders what it’d feel like to kiss somebody who has lip piercings.

-

Sarah shows up on Katherine’s doorstep early in the morning with her hands behind her back and a blinding smile on her face. “You can tell me I’m the greatest magician girlfriend in the world,” she says.

“We been knew that.” Katherine smiles, tilting her head. “But why should I be reminded?”

Sarah steps inside and gives Kath a kiss in greeting. It makes her go warm inside, even after feeling it so many times by now. They haven’t quite reached Jack and Davey levels of obnoxious couple; both of them prefer showing affection during quiet nights in than for the whole world to see. Katherine lets it be special and private and _theirs_ \--Sarah Jacobs is the best thing life could’ve given her, simple as that.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Sarah says, leaning her arms on Kath’s shoulders and giving her the sweetest, flirtiest kind of smile she’s got--all dimples and bottom lip between her teeth. “Tonight, after work, come to Davey and I’s place, yes?”

“Will do,” Katherine replies.

“I’ve got a plan to push Spot and Crutchie together, too. It’s going to be an interesting time. But be there for me, too, because I love you.”

She’s pretty much powerless against Sarah’s wishes. Now she knows how Jack must feel about Dave--with those Jacobs dark brown puppy dog eyes, they could convince a priest to commit a list of sins.

-

Katherine goes after getting off work to the Jacobs residence, past the hippie van up the walkway to the blue front door. It’s unlocked; at this point, she just lets herself in.

Jack and Davey are on the couch, because of course they are. They’re watching what appears to be a Spanish soap opera, both in boxers and t-shirts and so tangled up in each other she can scarcely tell where one ends and the other begins.

“Hello, dumb and dumber,” she says.

Jack’s head pops up from behind the couch. “You rang.”

“Is Sarah here?” Katherine asks.

Davey sits up too after muting the television, ruffling up his own curls. “No, she went to convince Spot and Crutchie to come on the crusade she has planned for tonight. She’ll be back soon, she said.”

“Are you guys coming too, then?”

“Yup,” Jack says. “And she ain’t telling us a thing about it.”

Davey smiles. “We should get dressed.”

Jack whines, sinking down against Davey’s chest and kissing his thigh. “No. Pants are overrated.”

-

“I’m staying too long,” Spot sighs. “I got classes again in two days, I should be getting my ass back to my dorm.”

“Your school’s close to here, you’ll be fine,” Sarah says, waving a hand at him.

“Where the hell are we going, Essie?” Davey asks, crossing his arms.

They’re all packed into Davey’s car, Sarah at the wheel and Katherine riding shotgun. They’ve forced all the boys to cram together in the small backseats--not that Jack minds sitting in Davey’s lap, but Crutchie and Spot look quite blushy at being pressed so close.

“Jack keeps poking me with his ribs,” Crutchie complains.

“It’s called _breathing?”_

“Well _stop._ ”

“Are we there yet?” Spot adds, peeking between the front seats.

“Actually, we are,” Sarah says, turning into a very crowded parking lot.

Katherine leans down, squinting. When she sees the rollercoaster track and flashing amusement park lights, she can’t contain a gasp. “Wait, Belmont Park?”

There are varied reactions as they find a spot (quite a distance away, because that is a full ass parking lot). Katherine gives Sarah a hug and lets loose an eager giggle; she hasn’t been to any kind of amusement park in a good few years. Crutchie looks worried. “I barely brought any money,” he says. “I don’t wanna make someone else pay for me.”

Sarah smiles at him. “No worries,” she says, and he’s about to argue but they’ve reached the gate.

Instead of asking for money when Sarah comes forward, the ticket seller grins excitedly. “Sarah! Was hoping you’d make it. And this is the army you warned us about, huh?”

“Hey, Mush,” she says brightly, giving him a quick hug. “Yep. Six including me.”

He counts out six combo passes and hands them to her. “Enjoy the night,” he says, with a sighing laugh. “Meanwhile I’m here handing out tickets.”

“Love you,” she sings, flashing him another smile as she hands out the all-access passes.

Crutchie’s eyes are wide. “Really? Just like that?”

Sarah smiles, picking up Kath’s hand and starting to pull her along. “I perform shows here all the time,” she explains. “So does Mush over there, and we’re friends, so when he handles tickets he’s willing to let me slip past. Plus I share lunch with him sometimes.”

“You’re amazing,” Spot says to her. She curtsies.

Jack has quickly adjusted to the idea of a free amusement park trip. “Rollercoaster?” he says to Katherine, and she grins.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

-

“Someday when I’m rich, I’m gonna take you on a massive ass trip so that we can ride all the fastest rollercoasters in the world together,” Jack tells Kath as they’re moving through the line for the second time. She giggles. It’s true, they’re both thrillseekers--the ones who go on all the fastest, loopiest rides while their slightly-more-sane friends (namely Davey and Spot) wait by the exit.

That is one thing that her father’s death hasn’t changed.

And for some reason, that thought makes her stand a little straighter.

From their spot in line, she can see Spot and Davey standing together a ways away. They’re talking, both looking reasonably comfortable in each others presence (especially Spot, for Spot, because he seems hard-pressed to feel comfortable).

“They have such a weird connection,” Jack says, noticing her staring. “I guess they’re both smart as hell and that’s it. Sometimes when they start talking I don’t know shit about what they’re saying.”

Katherine smiles. “I like Spot,” she says.

“Do you think he and Crutchie are into each other?”

She rolls her head toward him and gives him a look that says _are you seriously asking me that question._ “Oh yeah.”

“Sarah said she’s got a plan to get them together.”

“I hope. They’re so cute.”

“And things with Sarah?”

They move forward again in the line, so Katherine has a chance to wipe the most of the stupid smile away before she answers. “Things are… good.”

She finds Sarah, talking to Mush by a balloon-dart game with Crutchie standing beside her. She wonders if maybe the reason Crutchie and Spot are each split up with a Jacobs sibling has something to do with Sarah’s plan to get them to kiss, but well--it’s not her business.

Jack laughs. “I can tell. You’re blushing a lot. Embarrassed?” he crows, pushing his shoulder against hers.

“I’m not embarrassed, you shithead,” she insists, pushing right back. And she knows she’s not, but if she’s not, what is it? “I’m… happy.”

Jack’s not laughing anymore--he’s not even smiling, but something in his face is so, so bright. “Yeah, Kath. I know.”

-

Davey likes Spot. 

He might have been only sent to talk to him on a mission to get him to open up about Crutchie Morris, but he’s forgotten how much he likes the guy. They’ve always clicked. Davey loves Jack, with all his heart, but he’s not the best person to geek out about perpetual motion and chemistry with.

Davey’s rambling about kinetic energy into his snow cone when he catches Spot casting a glance at Crutchie, a distance away with Sarah. It reminds him why he’s here. “So how was Crutchie’s family thing?” he asks.

Spot glances over. He seems to be onto Davey; his brow is furrowed. Even so, he seems willing to talk. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Are you ever... afraid? Of losing Jack?”

Davey bites his lip, because wow, they’re really going this deep in front of a tiny car raceway covered in screaming children. “Uh, I guess I am, sometimes.”

“Just sometimes?”

“I kinda had to learn how to be glad he’s here,” Davey says, “instead of always worrying about how things could go wrong. I mean sometimes--this sounds really morbid and serial-killer-esque, I swear it’s not--but sometimes, when he falls asleep next to me and I’m still awake, I think of how easily something could happen to him. Or me. Or us. But I don’t control that, so there’s no point worrying, I guess.”

Spot blows out a sigh. “Shit,” he chuckles nervously. “I’m not good at this.”

“Neither is Crutchie,” Davey points out.

“You really love my brother?” Spot asks.

“I do.”

“And you don’t think it’s dangerous? To love somebody that much?”

“Maybe,” Davey says. “But I think that life’s pretty pointless if you live it never having loved someone that much.”

The subject of their deep conversation comes by to interrupt it. Jack stumbles off the rollercoaster for the third time in a row, right into Davey’s arms. “I’m gonna puke,” he says into his boyfriend’s chest, sounding thrilled.

Davey pets his hair. “I’m so proud of you, honey.”

Katherine links arms with Spot. “Tilt-a-whirl time?” she asks. “I see you looking longingly over towards it.”

His freckled cheeks go red. “Um. Yeah. The ride.”

She smirks. She knows very damn well that he wasn’t looking at the ride; he was looking at the Crutchie standing beside it.

Jack veers in front of them as they head over, walking backwards. “Dave, we gotta kick Spot’s ass at minigolf later.”

“What if Spot and I kick _your_ ass?” Davey says.

Jack’s jaw drops. “Traitor. You are a traitor.”

Sarah and Crutchie are waiting by the tilt-a-whirl, sure enough, and Kath’s happy to drape herself back over Sarah and never be separated again. “Shall we spin, my darling?” Sarah says, lifting both of Kath’s arms over her shoulders and giggling.

“We shall.”

“Whoever wants to spin as fast as those carts physically can, come with me and Jack,” Crutchie says.

Davey goes green at just the thought. “No thanks.”

Spot moves up to stand by Crutchie. “I’m down.”

“Hey!” Crutchie says. “I missed you.”

Katherine’s expecting Spot to fire back with some retort about how they weren’t even separated for that long, because, well, he’s _Spot._ But apparently the fiery Spot she knows goes on vacation around Crutchie, because all he can do is blush and say, “Feeling’s mutual.”

Katherine, Jack, Sarah, and Davey all manage to collectively give each other a “they’re so cute and stupid” stare.

The second they’re let in, Jack, Spot, and Crutchie are ready. Sarah has a calm and pleasant conversation with Davey while holding Katherine’s hand, and they spin slightly--occasionally, they catch a glimpse of Jack and the others, spinning as fast as possible and screaming.

“So here’s the plan,” Sarah says. “We get them together on the carousel, after mini golf.”

“Make them sit on one of the benches?” Katherine asks.

Davey smiles, leaning back in the seat and giving their cart a little spin. “God, those two are as emotionally stunted as rocks. If we let them they’ll suffer for even longer than Jack and I did.”

“So we don’t let them.”

Katherine closes her eyes, feeling her hair being blown across her face. The night is warm and lovely and she’s with people she loves and Christ. She thinks maybe it’s all been worth it.

They play a game of mini golf that ends in Jack and Sarah jousting with the plastic clubs while Spot and Crutchie aren’t _not_ invading each others’ personal space. At one point, Crutchie goes behind him and shows him the way to take his swings, and it almost hurts her to not shove them together and make them kiss.

-

Spot knows what Sarah’s doing. He knows what she’s doing when she loads them onto a crowded carousel, and when she sits he and Crutchie down together on one of the bench seats.

He knows what she’s doing, and he doesn’t mind.

Crutchie shifts against him as they’re listening to the safety rules being announced, and Spot honestly shudders, not expecting it. Crutchie glances over at him, startled and amused. “Holy shit. Are you cold? Want my jacket?”

Spot opens his mouth to protest, but Crutchie’s already shrugging it off and draping it over Spot’s shoulders and shit, it is very warm. “Thanks.”

“Don’t sweat it.” 

They’re quiet for a few moments, Crutchie tipping his head back against the seat and then letting it fall onto Spot’s shoulder.

Spot smiles, and he lifts a hand to hide it but that just brings Crutchie’s jacket up to his nose and it smells like him and fuck, fuck, fuck. “Crutchie,” he blurts out, and that immediately makes him sit up and tilt his head curiously. His eyes are nervous.

“Shit, Spot. I’m sorry if I…” Crutchie licks his lower lip. “I’m sorry if I read all this wrong, I--I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable or anything. If you don’t want--you can just tell me, I mean…”

Spot’s just staring at him, watching his lips move, thinking about his crazy family and how it feels to be close and how he wants to be close for a very, very long time.

Without a word, he leans forward and sweeps up the lips of a still-rambling Crutchie in his own, quieting him with a kiss.

-

Sarah lets out a muffled squeal into Katherine’s shoulder when, in front of her, she sees the silhouettes of Crutchie and Spot leaning together. Katherine gasps, too. They’re on another bench seat, just behind them, and they’ve been supervising the conversation.

“All is well with the world,” Sarah says, smiling.

Katherine looks over at her.

She’s got her dimples on show, and those flyaway curls that Kath fell in love with from the first day they met are illuminated by nighttime amusement park lights. She’s got neon pinks and greens dappling over her face from the bumper cars nearby, and Katherine tries not to get too flowery but something about all this, something about Crutchie and Spot, about the warm wind, about the lights and ocean sound nearby, has her spinning.

Katherine loves words. And sometimes she just has to use them to think about Sarah. About how it feels to be here, with her, like this, fingers linked together and full from head to toe with the knowledge that this magician loves her. 

“What’re you staring at?” Sarah asks.

Katherine smiles. “You.”

Sarah leans back into Katherine, and Kath puts an arm around her to pull her close. “How come?” Sarah asks, craning her neck to make eye contact without leaving Katherine’s shoulder.

She could pull out all her words, all the big new ones she learns every day. But maybe she should save those for later. Right now, small ones will do. “You make me really happy,” she answers. “That’s all.”

Sarah hums, kissing her shoulder as the carousel slows to a stop. “That’s all," she echoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on tumblr @livingchancy and leave me some comments. if ya like. bye !


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UM, HELLO. so this is the last chapter???? what???  
> honestly, crazy and a bit sad. this story is like my baby and i really am gonna miss it, aww :( but hey! now onto new projects! there may or may not be a sequel to a certain story involving fairies and pirates coming soon ;)  
> as always, don't mind the unedited writing or places where exhaustion pushed me to paraphrasing. enjoy the last magic lesbians chapter!!!!

Sarah’s wiping the kitchen counter when Davey comes in and announces, “Mom and dad want us to come visit them this weekend. You busy?”

She pauses her scrubbing. “Really?”

He sets down his keys. “Yeah, really. They miss you. And they want us to bring our rollercoaster-loving significant others, respectively. I may have tipped off that you have a new girl.”

Sarah bites her lip. “I mean, no, I’m not doing anything, it’s just...”

Davey’s looking at her in that way he does, like she’s a math problem he’s so close to solving. “Are you afraid of running into Ella again?”

She doesn’t answer, and that is the answer.

“Look,” her brother sighs, leaning back against the counter and repeating it. “Look, I really doubt you will. But even if you do, it won’t be as bad as you think. She’s not a monster. She’s just… a human who you used to love.”

Sarah tries for a laugh. “And the difference is?”

“I’m serious, Essie. And besides, you’ve moved on now. You’ve got Kath. You can handle seeing Raf if you need to. Don’t roll your eyes at me! This isn’t some stranger throwing bullshit at you, this is me. You trust me, don’t you?”

She glances up at him, finally. Of course she does, with her life, and he knows it. Deep down, she knows he’s right. It’s not like it’s surprising that he’s right, either. He’s had a front row seat to her pain with Rafaela; he let her move in with him because of it, for Christ’s sakes. But she hasn’t been home since she saw Ella with that boy. And though she knows, _logically,_ (stupid David and his logic) that she’s going to have to face it at some point, that doesn’t keep it from cutting her to ribbons. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll go.”

-

Her parents live farther north in California, where the snow falls; it’s a good long drive from San Diego. 

They drag Katherine and Jack along at Esther’s requests and force David to do most of the driving. “I’m going to divorce you,” he says. “And not just Jack. All three of you, we’re getting a divorce. My arms are cramping.”

Davey is the only gay who can drive in their midst. Sarah’s okay, but she has no sense of direction. And Katherine has no idea how Jack actually got a license. He has no regard for speed limits, knocks over every innocent trash can in sight, and can’t make left hand turns (“why would you turn into oncoming traffic when you can go up eight blocks and make a right?”).

Katherine can, but her father died in a car accident. She has no problem riding in a car, but she hasn’t gotten behind a wheel since it happened.

Maybe it’s irrational. But so is everything. She’s found she needs to choose the battles to have with herself.

“There’s no one on the road,” Jack’s saying to Davey as Katherine and Sarah lay on each other in the back seats. “You can go faster.”

“Highway speed limit is 70.”

Jack waves a hand. “The speed limit is just a number.”

“It’s… really not. Please never drive.”

Sarah is lying across the back seats, her head in Katherine’s lap, one earbud in, eyes closed. Davey complained about her refusal to wear a seatbelt, but she’d shrugged him off. Katherine’s playing with her hair. She likes the simplicity of a thing like that, gently combing out tangles with her fingers and loosely braiding random pieces.

Katherine’s mind flashes back to Jack’s birthday party, the space both of them pushed between each other and how absurd it was. Spring. That was the season Sarah had said Kath reminded her of. And in that moment, she hadn’t felt like spring--but now, now she does.

 _I’m so in love with you,_ Katherine thinks. 

She figures Sarah is asleep, so it startles her when those dark eyes open and look up toward her. And she doesn’t say anything, but she offers a gentle smile and Katherine knows she’s thinking it too.

-

Katherine and Sarah have both fallen asleep by the time Davey pulls up to the house. Neither Jack nor Kath have ever been, and he’s nervous, sue him. 

It’s the same reason he was hesitant to act on his feelings in the first place--Davey’s so smart, so put together and ambitious and Jack’s a ragamuffin tattoo artist who doesn’t know what he’s having for dinner tomorrow, let alone what career he wants to have in ten years. He has a fear that the Jacobs parents aren’t going to find him fit for their son. Hell, sometimes he doesn’t think he is.

He really hopes they don’t have anything against tattoos. 

He should’ve worn long sleeves.

Davey notices, because of course he does. He grabs Jack’s face and kisses him, keeping his cheeks squished while scolding him. “Cut out your worrying. They’re gonna love you.”

“How do you know I’m worrying?”

“Now? Because you’re being defensive.” Davey smiles at him, running a gentle hand down his chest before he heads to the porch. “You’ll be fine, sweets. Promise.”

As always, Davey is right. He has nothing to worry about--the second Esther opens the door, she’s smiling and bright and so very happy to see him. She has the dark hair and eyes of both her children, as well as the gentleness. “The famous Jack Kelly,” she says. 

“The famous Esther Jacobs,” he responds. “Hello, ma’am.”

She pats his cheek, gently. “It’s good to finally meet you. I practically know your life story from all the gushing David’s done.”

“Ma,” Davey protests, and Jack doesn’t miss her wry grin, so he decides to embarrass the love of his life further.

“Well,” he says, flipping hair he doesn’t have. “I am irresistible, ain’t I, Dave?”

“Oh… hush up and go inside,” Davey giggles, kicking at him. He obeys, but turns around in time to see Davey give his mother a hug and a kiss on the cheek. It sets off strange fireworks in his chest. His kink seems to be boys who are sweet to their mothers. And boys who name their puppies after the elements. 

His kink is just David Jacobs, really.

-

Esther and Mayer are excited to see Kath, too, but in a different way. Sarah can tell they’re looking at her and trying to see the space where Rafaela was but they’re just unable to. Maybe Katherine would seem replaceable, if she weren’t Katherine. 

She laughs her way through her own jokes and compliments Esther’s cooking and goes on a tirade with Mayer about the imperativeness of using semicolons correctly. And though Sarah knows they’re both reminded of the old, they’re enamored enough with the new.

That’s always been one of Sarah’s favorite things about Katherine--how unashamed she is about the space she takes up in the world. She’s working on that.

When the sun is starting to go down, Sarah insists on showing Katherine around. “The town is tiny, and it’s so pretty outside,” she says. Kath seems eager enough--it’s special to her, really, getting to see where Sarah grew up.

It’s strange going into town, which is the understatement of the year.

All the shops and telephone lines she grew up seeing seem so… normal. “I built this place up in my head while I was gone, I guess,” she says as they walk. “I imagined it as, I dunno, scary. But it’s not. It’s just how I left it.”

“Brains are funny that way.”

“Why are brains so set on worst case scenarios? Like intrusive thoughts, what’s up with that?”

Kath’s mouth twitches in a smile. “If you give a thing that’s mortal the smarts to know it’s mortal, all it’ll ever do is think about its own demise. God fucked up there.”

“Do you believe in God?” Sarah asks randomly.

“I want to,” is all Katherine says. Then, after a pause, “Do you?”

Sarah bites her lip. “That’s hard. I mean, I’m Jewish, but it’s not honestly about God to me. I like the idea that we aren’t alone in the universe. It sounds really corny, but I do think that God is love, or all good things. You know--that sort of idea.”

Kath takes her hand. “I do know,” she says.

They talk together. It’s strange; whenever Sarah walked with Rafaela, their steps would fall perfectly in sync, but with Katherine, they usually don’t. Katherine’s walking pattern is hard to imitate. Sarah kind of likes that.

She tells her all about the town. The crosswalk she fell and scraped her knee in, the drug store roof she and her friends always climbed onto during high school, the place that serves the best damn iced tea she’s ever had. They stop to get some, just because they can and because Sarah misses the way tea from home tastes.

“You like being home,” Kath says softly. “I can tell.”

“Yes, I do.”

They’re sitting at a table in front of a currently-closed frozen yogurt shop, enjoying the warmth of the night and the softness of an almost-dark sky. “It’s pretty here,” Katherine says. “I can see way more stars than in San Diego.”

“Too much light pollution.”

“Stupid lights.”

“I agree. Let’s banish electricity and go back to candlelight.”

Katherine giggles. They’re silent for a few beats before she says, “I love your family.”

Sarah smiles. “Yeah. I love them too. And they seem super excited about you.”

“I had no clue you had a younger brother,” Kath continues. “I always thought--”

But she stops, because Sarah’s gone stiff next to her. “Sarah?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”

But Sarah’s just staring at the figure walking toward them, the person walking toward them, because it can’t be. It absolutely can’t be, and yet it is; it’s Rafaela, headed straight for them.

-

Sarah doesn’t even think. She just moves. She stands up and makes a beeline in the opposite direction, straight for home. Katherine follows, and she faintly hears her saying her name but she just can’t. She can’t look, or listen, or accept that she truly saw Rafaela on the street.

It’s dark and her hair is different. That’s what’s throwing her, in the fall of it--Rafaela’s hair. She cut it. It’s gone, buzzed down to the scalp, and yet she can still recognize her just by her walking gait.

She doesn’t realize she’s running until Katherine grabs her arm. “Sarah!” she gasps, panting.

“No,” Sarah says, struggling. “No, I have to go, I have to get out of here--”

“Love, calm down. We’re far enough away. Just breathe, please.” Katherine holds her still until she gives up on flight and just breathes. No tears come, but the panic flailing in her chest goes still.

“That was her, wasn’t it?” Kath murmurs. “That was…”

And Sarah’s silence is the answer.

“Jesus,” she says. “I’m so sorry, Sarah.”

Finally, words come to her. She shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry,” she says. This isn’t Katherine’s thing to be sorry about.

_And it’s not mine either._

She’s so tired of being sorry. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Sarah repeats.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” And strangely enough, she is. There’s a bizarre peace settling over her now, holding her still, clearing her head. It may be dark, but Rafaela isn’t a monster, and she’s done carrying this weight around with her. She’s ready to stop. “Yeah, I am.”

Katherine’s voice is so gentle. “Are you sure?” 

“Positive.” Sarah takes a deep breath, then takes her hand again. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

-

There’s a knock on the door early the next morning, before anybody else is even awake.

Sarah is, though.

She’s been up since the crack of dawn, drinking coffee that only tastes this certain way when it’s made in her parents’ house. Her hair’s hanging down against her back, long (longer than she remembers) and tangled, and she’s got her mother’s hoodie on over Katherine’s t-shirt, and life feels so _okay._

She thinks if there were snow, she wouldn’t need to throw away her boots anymore.

But then the knock sounds.

She stands up with a curious frown and moves toward it. Of course, she has the anti-serial killer instinct to check who it is, and her heart leaps into her throat. 

Rafaela is standing on the doorstep.

Sarah’s not sure why, but she unlocks and opens it. Ella looks surprised that someone actually came, and doubly surprised to see it’s Sarah herself.

“Hi,” she says, softly.

“Hi,” Sarah says.

They take a moment, staring each other down, before Sarah shakes off the wonder and asks, “What are you doing here?” 

“I wanted to talk to you.” Rafaela sways side to side nervously, hands in her jacket pockets. She looks up again and laughs, but it’s a strange laugh--it’s sad. “You… you’re so pretty.”

Sarah bites her lip. “So are you.”

“Can we talk?” Ella asks.

She hesitates, just long enough that Ella clearly thinks she’s going to say no, but then she says, “Let me get dressed.”

-

They leave the house together and head down the road, the weakness of morning sun casting them in pale gold. It feels almost like they’re back in high school, loving each other and not having a care in the world. Sarah’s steps fall into rhythm with Ella’s without her even meaning to.

It’s not warm, but not exactly cold. She wouldn’t be able to feel the air at all if it weren’t for the surprisingly insistent wind that tugs at her hair, and that reminds her. “Your hair,” Sarah says.

Rafaela, startled from her thoughts, absentmindedly lifts a hand to her buzzed black hair. “Oh. Yeah,” she laughs.

“It looks nice.”

“Thanks.”

And it does--it suits her in a way that Sarah would have never seen coming. Still, her mind circles relentlessly to the past. She always loved Rafaela’s hair. And it meant something to Ella, too, to wear it long and not straighten it. _If people can’t handle my natural hair, that’s nowhere near my problem,_ she remembers her saying, bright-eyed. “Why the change?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ella sighs. “I guess it just reminded me of the past. It was a thing I had to do for myself. I associated it with sadness, with… losing you.” Her smile is pained when Sarah glances up toward it. 

Sarah kicks at a rock. “I’m guessing the past is what you wanted to talk about.”

“Yeah, in essence.”

Sarah laughs, unsure what else to do with the pain in her chest. She hasn’t heard somebody say _in essence_ since she lost Ella. 

“You and your big words,” she sighs. 

She’s struck with a memory of saying exactly that to Katherine on one of their first dates. Davey’s right. She really does have a type.

“Look, Sarah,” Ella says. She stops walking by a stop sign and faces Sarah, dark eyelashes illuminated yellow in the summer sunrise. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry about how things happened, and mostly I’m sorry for how I handled it, because that was the only part I could control. God, I… I spent a year trying to figure out what I wanted to say to you. But now that you’re here, I know it’s as easy as that. I’m sorry.”

Sarah looks behind Ella, into the sun, long hair still being blown this way and that.

“I was just doing what I thought would save my own ass, and I’m going to carry that regret with me for the rest of my life. I should’ve listened to you. I should have found ways to keep things going as they were, but I really was too scared.”

“I don’t blame you for being scared,” Sarah says, gently.

“No. I know you don’t. I blame myself.”

Sarah pockets her hands in her mother’s hoodie. “I’m sorry too,” she blurts. “That day, when he came into the bedroom? I shouldn’t have left you there. I think all the time about how differently things might’ve been if I’d stayed.”

Rafaela tilts her head. “Well, I release you from that thought. There’s no point wishing for things to be different. They happened the way they happened; there’s nothing we can do. Hypotheticals don’t matter to me.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“You guess? I’m always right. Don’t forget it.” Ella laughs and starts walking again.

Sarah follows. “So… I have to ask, because I saw you out with a guy…”

Ella blows out a breath and nods. “You wanna know if I’m as fully lesbian as I always claimed to be.” She looks up at the sky, and Sarah finds herself looking there too, like it’s where the answers are. “The honest answer is that I don’t know. That guy and I--Finch--we never actually went out. I met him at college, and I just sort of asked him to… play along, just for a visit to my dad, and it worked; daddy dearest thinks I’m straight.”

It takes Sarah’s head a moment to wrap itself around this. “You mean… you weren’t dating him?”

“No. And that’s why it killed me when you saw us, because I had no way to tell you.”

So the entire reason Sarah moved to San Diego wasn’t even a reason at all.

Or maybe it was. Of course, seeing Ella with a guy had been the final straw, but it wasn’t the only one. Reasons had been building for a year and a half before she finally ran to her brother and his flower shop.

And it’s turned out to be exactly what she needed.

If things had been different, if she’d stayed with Ella and they’d gone to college together, Sarah wouldn’t know Katherine. She wouldn’t know Crutchie, and who knows, Spot and Crutchie may have never gotten together. She wouldn’t be half as close to Davey as she is. She wouldn’t be a magician. And she’s sure there’s some alternate universe where all of that is true.

But in this universe, on the street in her hometown, she thinks of Katherine Pulitzer’s red curls spilling over her pillow case and all of the card tricks she knows and she thinks that her brother’s right; that every kind of pain has some sort of reason behind it.

“Do you still talk to your dad?”

“I wasn’t planning to, but he’s sick. Pancreatic cancer; that’s why I’m back here for the summer. My guess is that it’s from all the drinking.”

Her eyes widen. “Ella… I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says. “I don’t love him. And it’s not my job to, either. But for now he’s got no one else in the world on his side. What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.”

“I get it.” Sarah can’t help thinking of Katherine. Fathers; it seems there’s no right way to be or have one.

“And when he’s gone, I’ll be free.” Rafaela laughs into the morning air. “It sounds so cruel, but I’m really ready, Essie. He’s the reason I don’t even know if I’m a lesbian, because for a year and a half I’ve been terrified to even think about it. I’ll be fine on my own. And that brings me to you, I suppose. I hear you’re a magician now?”

She smiles. “Guilty.”

Rafaela’s silent, and when Sarah lifts her eyes to her, she’s just studying Sarah the same way she did in high school--like she’s some abstract piece of art she doesn’t understand but trusts has meaning.

“And that girl you were with. She’s…?”

“Yeah.” Sarah’s insides warm at just the thought of her. “Her name’s Katherine. We met down in San Diego, and we’ve… well, I’m crazy over her.”

“You’re happy,” Ella says, eyes sparkling. “I can tell.”

“I guess I am.” Sarah giggles. “I just can’t believe how grown up you look. You’re almost a different person.”

Rafaela smiles; they’ve gone in a circle and ended back at Sarah’s house. “You too. You really did turn out so pretty. Katherine’s lucky.”

“And you? Are you happy?”

Ella takes a deep breath. “I’m getting there.”

“Sarah!”

They both start and turn toward the door, only to see Davey flying down the walkway in nothing but Marvel boxers and one of Jack’s Johnny Cash t-shirts. “Sarah,” he says. “Oh, my God. Don’t you scare me like that. I was about to get in the car and come looking for you when I woke up and saw you weren’t--” He breaks off when he sees who she’s standing with. 

“David,” Rafaela says, looking just as surprised.

He blinks. “Rafaela? Is that… really you?”

“It really is.”

He lunges forward and hugs her. She looks surprised, but manages to squeeze him back. “Sorry,” he says after he’s pulled back. “I’m just a very huggy person. I’ve missed you; you look so good, what the hell? I dig the hair.”

She chuckles. “Thank you.”

“We were just talking,” Sarah says to him, and she can tell he sees everything she’s trying to say.

“I see. Well, come on, Essie, you gotta tell mom you’re alright.”

“Rafaela?!” they hear from the porch at exactly that moment, and turn to see Esther surveying her daughter’s former best friend in amazement from the doorway.

“Hi, Esther,” Ella laughs, hurrying up the steps to give her a hug too. Sarah and Davey follow. She listens to the expected spiel her mother gives--that she’s missed her to death, that she loves the hair, that she’s heard about her father and what a shame, would she like to come in and stay for breakfast.

Rafaela finally steps back. “I should actually be going, but thank you for the offer. And I’m sorry for kidnapping your daughter. I just wanted to talk things out.”

Sarah squeezes her hand.

Just then, Katherine and Jack come clattering down the road and up the porch steps. “Oh, hello,” Jack says to Sarah. “They tracked you down, then.”

Katherine lets out a choked noise of relief and throws her arms around Sarah. “Thank God.”

When she pulls back, she sees Rafaela, and her eyes widen. Ella looks equally as bemused, and they take a minute before Ella says, “So you must be Katherine, then.”

“That I am,” Kath replies. “And you’re Rafaela.”

They shake hands; and it’s incredibly strange for Sarah to watch her two different lives meet, but she thinks it’s best they do. 

“I was just heading off, but… you struck gold here.” Rafaela smiles. “Treat her right. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll do my best,” Kath promises, slipping an arm around Sarah’s waist.

“I’ll see you?” Sarah says.

Rafaela gives her one last kiss on the cheek. “I hope so.” And then she waves, steps down from the porch, and walks away. Sarah, Katherine, Davey, Jack, and Esther all watch as her silhouette is swallowed up by the sunrise, a piece of old life washing out to make room for the new.

-

“You sure about this?” Jack asks.

Sarah shuts her eyes, but nods. She can tell it’s the final time he’s going to ask. “I’ve never been more sure about anything.”

They’re back in San Diego, and Sarah’s sitting in one of the tattoo parlor chairs. Her arm’s on a small table in front of her, gently held by Jack’s gloved hand. He nods. “Okay, I’m gonna start with the gun then.” He chuckles gently at the nervous look on her face. “You ready?”

“Just go for it.”

“I promise it doesn’t hurt too bad,” he says. “Trust me. I’m the hugest wimp in the world, and I got sleeves. You’ll be alright.”

The noise startles Sarah more than anything. He talks as he works, in an attempt to distract her, his words drowned out by the buzz of the tattoo gun against her wrist. She realizes that she’s never actually seen him look so serious--his dark eyes are fiercely focused on his rhythm of alternating between the gun, wiping over it, and applying some sort of cream. She thinks somewhere in the noise he’s telling her about what he’s doing but she’s deaf to the world.

It doesn’t honestly hurt as much as she thought it would. It’s a pricking sensation, but nothing unbearable. Maybe she’s just got a high pain tolerance.

He pulls back when it’s finished and wipes it one final time. “Ta-da!”

Sarah feels herself grin as she lifts her wrist. She’s never had the same anxiety about tattoos that Kath and her brother seem to have, about their permanence. This one’s small, anyway, right where her arm meets her palm. 

Of course, though, it has significance. 

Probably to anybody else it seems arbitrary, but Sarah wants to remember this feeling for the rest of her life. She wants to remember this coastal town, the people who pulled her back from the edge, the favors she’s done for them in return. She wants to remember how capable she is of rediscovering herself after life strips her bare. Most of all, she wants to remember the very hobby that led her to the girl who’s made her life so new.

So life is unpredictable. So things are going to hurt and break and spill, and she’s powerless to stop that. So the idea of feeling okay is messy, and it comes in pulses. 

And she knows that there isn’t going to be a day that goes by in which she won’t have to fight with the world to feel at peace in it.

But as she lifts up her wrist and looks at the tiny magician’s hat tattooed there, she thinks she stands a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOWOWOW. i'm emotional. like i said this story is very precious to me and i'm sad to see it go<333 i just take the opportunity to be sappy and say that yall who leave comments on all/most of the chapters, i see you and love you! so very much! thank you, you've kept me going sjksjlsj  
> for the last time here, rb my tumblr post @livingchancy and leave me a comment here if you want  
> bye bye sleight of hand :')


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